


The First Courageous Step

by a_good_soldier



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Consensual Underage Sex, Economics, Exhaustion, Flirting Over Political Economy, Food Issues, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Insecurity, Loneliness, M/M, Mentioned Jetko, Mentioned Ozai (Avatar), Pining, Politics, Post-Canon, Power Imbalance, Zuko (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 48,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27463747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: As peacetime construction begins in the Fire Nation, Zuko goes to war: against his own generals, against his nation’s economic structure, and against his martyric pride.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 70
Kudos: 251





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic that is primarily about Zuko exhausting himself as a political figurehead, and secondarily about Zuko being extremely embarrassingly in love with Sokka. Also, it engages in Suki and Mai erasure because I'm... horrible (and also started writing this a few episodes into rewatching the show because the power of political allegory compelled me).
> 
> The tags are pretty descriptive, but please note that this work includes instances of internalized and systemic homophobia, very mild questions of power dynamics, and political crises.
> 
> NOTE: while the dynamics of age seem kind of different in the atla universe, the characters are under the age of 18 in the explicit parts of this work. I chose not to tag it with an underage warning, but YMMV. Please take care of yourself!
> 
> Feel free to shoot me an ask over at [@agoodsoldier](https://www.agoodsoldier.tumblr.com) if you have more questions or want more warnings.

The night before Zuko’s coronation, he lets Toph bully him into getting them all pip berries, because he’s as gullible as a koalasheep to her ruthless wolfbat.

Aang’s not interested in partaking, thank the spirits. Pip berries are fine for twelve year olds, Zuko’s pretty sure, but an Aang high on whatever it is that makes them so fun could be dangerously hyperactive, or worse; he could turn inward and prod at all the terrible things in life the way Zuko does, because the pip berry haze makes it safe. Zuko remembers that once, his mother hadn’t eaten her dinner and had maybe had too much dessert, and she had tucked him into bed, and she had said, “It scares me so much that you and Azula will grow up here.” Quietly, matter-of-factly, because the pip berry glaze made everything seem bearable, if you had enough of it. Zuko learned that many years later.

If Aang downed a handful of berries and turned to Zuko to tell him how he felt, carelessly, like it didn’t matter at all — to recall aloud some wisdom passed on from long-dead Gyatso, or to wonder how the Air Temples will be filled up again after a genocide whose skeletons still haunt the temple rooms — it’d break Zuko’s heart.

Fortunately for all of them, Aang’s high on nothing but hanging out with his friends and Katara’s head resting in his lap. Toph, of course, is wasted, and absentmindedly crumpling portions of his wall in and out of uncanny shapes. Sokka rounds out the pack, lazily sprawled across Zuko’s bed, head hanging over the edge to look down at the rest of them on the floor as he pokes fun at his sister and occasionally berates Toph when her architectural engineering gets a little too close to threatening structural instability for comfort.

Zuko’s had too many berries. He’s enjoying the gentle chaos, though. Enjoying the feeling of being absolutely superfluous to the main action. After tomorrow, he’ll be the Fire Lord.

Fire Lords don’t get to space out at pip berry parties.

“Hey, Fire Lord,” Sokka yells, calling him out of his reverie. “You good there? Need some water?”

“I’m not Fire Lord yet,” Zuko says. This night is ostensibly a celebration, although they’ve been very good at dancing around the subject of his coronation.

“You’re close enough,” Sokka retorts, naturally, and slithers down to lie down on the floor with his feet still on the mattress above him. “Fire L’rd Zuko,” he says, muffled into the rug.

Zuko can’t control his flinch, then, grateful Sokka doesn’t notice it. Aang, however, does, but says only a generous: “I prefer Sifu Hotman.”

“It’s good that you don’t like the name,” Toph interrupts, hand reaching out for the pip berry bowl. Sokka wriggles himself forward, like a snake, just enough that his feet drop to the ground. Katara pokes Sokka in his ticklish stomach and he jerks, head inching closer and closer to Zuko with every motion. “You didn’t become Fire Lord because you wanted power. You did it because you had a bunch of badasses around to destroy your piece of shit dad.”

“She’s right,” Aang says, while Zuko realizes that Toph is — cruel, cruel world — someone who is _both_ hyperactive and unfortunately insightful on pip berries.

Zuko doesn’t reply, and the conversation slides away to Katara and Aang’s travel plans, Toph’s deeply held desire to become the best heavyweight fighter in Ba Sing Se, the latest gossip from Ember Island. Sokka occasionally mumbles contributions from his position on the floor. Eventually, the rest of them clear out, leaving Sokka to help Zuko clean up.

“I didn’t realize you didn’t like to be called that,” Sokka says as they stack trays on Zuko’s desk, to be cleared away in the morning. “Fire Lord.”

Zuko can’t stop himself from tensing, although at least he doesn’t flinch outright. He keeps his head turned away from Sokka, as though by looking away, he can avoid seeing Sokka see him. Zuko’s hand shakes as he crouches down to pick up a cup. “It’s that I’m not the Fire Lord yet,” he says. There’s not much else to say, although he knows Sokka doesn’t — can’t — get the truth underneath: that this is the last night he has before he becomes the Fire Lord.

Sokka doesn’t reply as Zuko pushes himself up to add the cup to the growing pile. He’s just looking at him, Zuko realizes as he turns around. He’s just watching, hands under his armpits as he slouches against a bedpost.

“You need something?” Zuko asks, trying to seem unaffected.

Sokka shrugs. “Did you have fun tonight?”

“Yes.” Of course he did, with them. Not that Zuko would ever say that — not in those words, not in that tone, not to anyone from this team of plucky teens when he knows every word out of his mouth has to toe the line between reparative friendship and taking too many liberties — but it’s there.

“Good.” And Sokka adds, “I know you’re under a lot of stress. You deserve a night away from it every now and then.”

“Not a lot of nights away in my future,” Zuko says without thinking, and immediately frowns at himself. So much for keeping it hidden, letting the night wind down to its natural close without poking the elephant in the room. 

“What do you mean?” Sokka shifts to stand upright, takes a step forward to Zuko. “I mean. I know that you won’t really have a lot of time as the— well, you know—”

“This country needs to be rebuilt from the ground up,” Zuko says. It’s all he’s been thinking about for weeks. “People can’t change overnight. We can’t just say _no more fighting_ and hope for the best. Our economy is built on military production. Three generations of Fire Nation people have been living on stolen Earth Kingdom territory. Our education system is rotten to the core.”

All of that is true, of course, but Zuko still feels like an asshole when he adds, a little petty, “I won’t exactly have time for pip berries, Sokka.”

Sokka looks up at him, wide-eyed. “Do you really think that?”

It takes Zuko a moment to realize that Sokka’s asking seriously, and not trying to patronize him. Zuko’s mouth twists. “I don’t think you get days off as royalty. Not here, not when we’re moving out of a hundred years of war. Tonight, for me, this was…” Zuko thinks about eating more pip berries, to give himself the distance to say what he wants to say, which is that this was something of a goodbye. A sendoff party, just for him, secretly, to have in his heart.

Apparently Sokka gets it even without Zuko saying it. “Dude,” he says, rushing forward to take Zuko’s upper arms. “ _Dude_.”

“We’ll still hang out with each other, I promise. Just— at events. Diplomatic functions. Stuff like that.” Zuko’s gaze skitters away from Sokka’s blue eyes, uncomfortable. No one’s ever given him a look like that. He’s never let someone down by taking on more responsibility before — only by shirking it, like he’s done so many times in the past.

Sokka clears his throat. “Well,” he says, and Zuko realizes Sokka’s had the pip berries, too, full to burst with feelings and motivations and _needs_ , and Zuko’s right there with him. Spirits, he’s right there with him. Sokka leans closer, voice lower. “If this is the last time we’re gonna have a real party…”

Zuko waits a beat, and then watches as Sokka’s face falls. In a split second — sticking his courage to whatever he can find — he takes a step forward, right into Sokka’s personal space, leg almost between Sokka’s. “Do I really have to do everything myself?” he asks, breath mingling with Sokka’s, and Sokka takes him at his word, and Sokka kisses him.

Above all, Sokka tastes like pip berries, and Zuko bites at his bottom lip, swallows his air, breathes him in and feels Sokka’s fingertips like fire against the bare skin of his arms.

Zuko’s awful at deliberately doing anything less than perfectly, sex very much included—which is not to say that his luck doesn’t generally make poor outcomes an inevitability anyway — but he forces himself to break the momentum. Sokka blinks at him when he pulls back, face red. “Uh, is there—”

“I’m not trying to be. Mean,” is how Zuko starts the stupidest attempt at a sentence to ever come out of his mouth, and Sokka flinches. “No!” Zuko rushes to say, realizing how this sounds. “No. No! I just.” He breathes out. “You understand, right?”

“No,” Sokka says, face turning less devastated and more incredulous by the second. “Obviously not. What?”

“I mean, this. It’s not.” Zuko doesn’t know any other way to put it, except: “I’m becoming the Fire Lord tomorrow.”

Sokka’s nods in understanding. “Right,” he says, “yeah, I get you. Not exactly husband material, here–”

“No—” Zuko’s hand clenches around a flame. “I can’t— I can’t afford anything that isn’t about my people after tomorrow. And if you want to keep seeing each other after this then I’m sorry, I just—”

“Hey,” Sokka says, pulling Zuko closer against his body. Zuko breathes in his smell, his warmth. “It was a stupid joke. I know you. I get this.” He presses a kiss against Zuko’s temple and Zuko shudders, somehow hot and cold at once, skin prickling all down the back of his thighs, the palms of his hands, his neck. “So,” Sokka breathes into his cheek, “how do you wanna say goodbye to the hot bachelor life?”

“With you,” Zuko says firmly, and relishes Sokka’s bewildered laughter against his mouth.

Sokka’s hands trail down his sides. “You’re so thin,” Sokka notes absentmindedly, and then scrambles to add, “I mean, uh, in a sexy way—”

“I’m mortally offended,” Zuko deadpans, and puts his hands in Sokka’s hair because he doesn’t know what else to do. He rakes his fingernails against Sokka’s scalp gently, out of curiosity, and Sokka shivers. “Oh. Nice.”

“Sh— shut up,” Sokka mutters, pressing kisses to the sensitive skin around Zuko’s neck, his jaw.

“Wasn’t making fun.” Zuko doesn’t really know how to say what he’s really feeling, which is that Sokka against him is a revelation, that Zuko’s been struck by curiosity that spears through him like lightning, that he’s so desperate for Sokka to make more sweet, soft sounds. He thumbs around the shell of Sokka’s ear just as his other hand settles against the shaved part of Sokka’s head and he’s rewarded with Sokka’s breath catching, a small choked out noise just for Zuko. “Agni. You’re so…” Delicate. Sensitive. _Beautiful._

“I feel like a fainting girl,” Sokka says, but before Zuko can unpack that, Sokka turns them around and shoves Zuko onto the bed. Zuko, sprawled across the covers, looks up at Sokka just standing there, watching him, and his face flushes. “Spirits,” Sokka murmurs, the heat of his gaze somehow pulling everything taut and urgent. Zuko can’t catch his breath. “You’re pretty.”

Zuko scowls. “Don’t— don’t patronize me.”

“What?” Sokka looks genuinely confused for a moment, and then stalks towards the bed, crawling above Zuko until his knees are bracketing Zuko’s thighs, their shoulders aligned, his mouth so, so close. “I’m not a liar, jerkbender,” he says, looking right into Zuko’s eyes for one unbearable moment.

Zuko closes his eyes. “Just kiss me,” he mutters, and Sokka, thank all the spirits, does.

It’s— he knew it would be, but it’s _more_ like this, horizontal, the weight and warmth of Sokka’s body pressing him down. Sokka’s hips settle down tentatively, his strong thigh between Zuko’s legs. Zuko gasps out a moan that is — it’s embarrassing, is what it is, considering Sokka’s done nothing but give him a little pressure, a little friction, but Sokka seems to love it, hands clenching on Zuko’s shoulders.

“You sound good,” Sokka says into Zuko’s mouth, and Zuko, completely involuntarily, chokes out another little sound in the back of his throat. “Yeah,” Sokka says, rocking his hips gently like — like some sort of _sex expert_ — as he slides his teeth against Zuko’s throat. “The noises you make are so good.”

“Please stop complimenting me,” Zuko says, teetering on the edge between pleasure and discomfort. He slides his hands down Sokka’s back to his ass, and squeezes, appreciating the muscle. “Just. Just _move_.”

“Y—yeah, okay,” Sokka stutters, forehead pressing into Zuko’s shoulder as he grinds down, his arms shaking. And then, like he can’t even help it, Sokka whispers, “ _Wow you are so hot_.”

“Can’t you just—” Zuko _heaves_ , pushing at Sokka’s body until he’s on top, Sokka’s hands splayed out around him. Sokka reaches up — to touch Zuko, presumably — and Zuko wraps his hand around Sokka’s wrist, pins him to the bed. He stays there for a moment, looking at Sokka under him, his chest moving, his bicep flexing as he adjusts to Zuko’s hold.

Everything is just — so _intense_. “I said,” Zuko hisses, “stop _complimenting_ me.”

Sokka looks at him consideringly, and then — horror of all horrors — he _grins_. “You like it,” he says wonderingly, his free hand coming up under Zuko’s shirt to rest against his bare skin, gently smoothing along Zuko’s waist to his lower back, the heat of it sending fingertips flying across Zuko’s nerves. “It makes you hot when I tell you how sexy I think you are.”

Zuko’s cock twitches, traitorously. And then, like an admission, “It’s weird. To like that. I don’t— it’s weird.”

Sokka’s eyes widen in realization. “No,” he hurries to say, “no, no, it’s not weird. I like it, I like that you like it. Please come here.” He pulls until, in one give, Zuko collapses on him, releasing his wrist to hold himself up on his elbows. “There,” Sokka says, peppering kisses against Zuko’s red face. “Cute. You’re so cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Zuko grumbles.

“You are,” Sokka says, both hands under his shirt now, one of them trailing down to the waistband of Zuko’s pants. “You’re cute, and beautiful, and handsome.” Sokka’s voice sobers, and Zuko shudders, his vision blurring. “I wanna touch you,” Sokka whispers, which would be stupid because his hands are already all over Zuko but Zuko knows what he means, and knows how impossible it is to say it, somehow.

Zuko nods, his face burning. He presses a kiss against the underside of Sokka’s jaw, holding the sheets between his hands for the sensation of it, so hard that everything feels good, feels sensual. The back of Sokka’s hand brushes against the inside of Zuko’s hip, inside his pants. “Oh—”

“Amazing,” Sokka says, hand moving with purpose until it finds Zuko’s cock. Zuko inhales sharply, his eyes closed, and he— he makes a noise. A noise which could, possibly, be classified as a whimper. “ _Perfect_ ,” Sokka breathes, dreamily, as he starts to stroke up and down. “You’re perfect. Look at you. _Listen_ to you.”

Zuko pulls it together enough to raise himself up, just slightly, enough to give Sokka a little more room to work. He bites his lip as he looks down between them, at Sokka’s hand in Zuko’s pants. And, at the visible bulge in Sokka’s pants. “Is it— do you like it?” Zuko asks softly. He looks up to meet Sokka’s eyes.

Sokka looks like he’s watching a sunset over a pristine snow mountain. Pure awe. “Do I like it?” Sokka scoffs, but Zuko’s already warm, even before Sokka adds, “Of course I like it. I like you.” He could see it in Sokka’s face.

“Y— you too,” Zuko stutters out, shaking. What a ridiculous thing to say. _You, too_. But Sokka doesn’t seem to mind, firming his grip, stroking with purpose. “Oh—”

“Nice,” Sokka says, which is ridiculous, but Zuko doesn’t reply, overwhelmed as he is with Sokka’s hand on his dick, Sokka’s body under his. Zuko bites his lip, puts a hand on Sokka’s shoulder as his hips move gently, involuntarily.

Something shifts into place — Sokka’s hand on him, his thumb circling obscenely across the head of Zuko’s dick — and Zuko gasps, buries his forehead in the bed next to Sokka’s neck.

“”S that good?” Sokka asks, putting his other hand on the back of his neck. His fingers play with Zuko’s hair and Zuko chokes out a breath, rutting forward into Sokka’s grip. “Wow. You sound so hot.”

“S— Sokka—” Zuko shudders, pleasure rolling down his body, his thighs shaking. “That’s— I’m—”

“Spirits, are you gonna come?” Sokka’s hand in Zuko’s hair turns to a palm against his scalp, pressing his face into Sokka’s throat, and Zuko moans into his skin, tonguing at Sokka’s sweat and rolling his hips. “Yeah. Yeah, I want you to come on me. That’s so _good_ , baby—”

“F— fuck,” Zuko hisses out, cock jerking as he comes, hard, across Sokka’s fingers, his shirt. His chest heaves, a strange sensation like sparkles dancing across his nerves, Sokka’s skin the only brands of heat on his otherwise numb body. “Spirits. Sokka. _Sokka_.”

Sokka laughs. “Wow. _Wow_. Look at you.” His grip softens, and he slides his hand up under Zuko’s shirt, flicking idly at Zuko’s nipple until Zuko pushes himself off Sokka, rolling onto his back next to him.

“That was good,” Zuko says quietly, and Sokka rolls over to rest his head on Zuko’s stomach. Zuko can feel him smiling.

“That was _surreal_ ,” Sokka says, his hand spanning Zuko’s thigh and smoothing up and down, running the length from his knee to his hipbone and back again. “You’re, like. Unbelievably gorgeous.”

Zuko flushes. “Sokka—”

“I’m completely serious.” Sokka uses his free hand to push himself up onto his elbow, his other hand still resting on Zuko’s thigh.

Zuko laughs uncertainly. “Hah. Well, uh.” He tries to look suave and brings his hand up to Sokka’s bicep, and then trails down to hold Sokka’s torso, thumb brushing against the underside of his pec. “You want me to return the favor?”

Sokka looks down like he’s embarrassed. “If you want to, I mean, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Zuko says, suddenly gripped with the possibility of seeing Sokka come, seeing him bite his lip or moan or laugh in pleasure. He rolls them over again, Sokka on his back, legs spread wide to accommodate Zuko between them.

Zuko presses a kiss to Sokka’s stomach, pushing up until Sokka finally takes his shirt off. He mouths along his hipbones, trailing kisses up his abdomen, tongue against Sokka’s nipple. Zuko glances up; Sokka catches his eye, and puts his — oh spirits — puts his hand against the right side of Zuko’s face, thumb rubbing a gentle circle on Zuko’s cheek.

“You’re kinda beautiful,” Sokka murmurs, and Zuko buries his face in Sokka’s chest, escaping his hand to slink downwards. “I mean it,” Sokka continues, as Zuko puts his hands on Sokka’s trembling stomach. “Man, you are— look at you. Wow.”

“Shut up,” Zuko mutters, pushing Sokka’s pants down until Sokka lifts his hips up to help.

“No way.” Zuko kneels up just as Sokka lies back, spread out for Zuko’s enjoyment, his _perusal_ , and Zuko’s breath catches. “I’m never gonna shut up about how hot you are.”

“You’re the hot one here,” Zuko spits out, with probably more vitriol than is necessary, and immediately hunches down to kiss Sokka’s muscular thighs. Sokka laughs, and then his laugh turns into a moan as Zuko gently bites into the skin of the inside of his left thigh.

“S— sick comeback, bro,” Sokka huffs. Zuko reaches up to gently, lightly touch Sokka’s dick, and Sokka chokes. “O— okay, yeah,” he says, much more seriously, “that’s pretty good.”

Zuko kisses upwards, face buried between Sokka’s thighs, mouth in the crease between his thigh and his hip, tasting Sokka’s body, his skin, his sweat, nose buried against Sokka’s dick. He gets the impression that Sokka’s used to trading fun, harmless barbs back and forth in bed, but Zuko’s never had sex like that. He’s only ever slept with Mai, and with Jet, and he doesn’t want to bring Jet into this bed. And Mai was more intense than Zuko was about the few things that meant something to her; sex, with her, was about making sure he knew she loved him. She brought him close to tears each of the few times they slept together.

Ill-advised as it is, he wants that for Sokka.

“S— spirits,” Sokka hisses, when Zuko finally presses his mouth against his balls, licks up the side of his shaft, tenderly, almost lost in it already. “You— do you like this?”

“Yeah,” Zuko says hoarsely, closing his eyes, before he lets the head of Sokka’s dick slide into his mouth. Sokka’s hips jolt upwards before Zuko presses him down into the bed with a forearm, and he’s rewarded with a full-body shudder.

“Zuko,” Sokka breathes, and Zuko presses his tongue against the underside of Sokka’s dick, sliding down just a bit further. He’s not sure what he’s doing, exactly, but he sucked Jet’s dick a few times, and he’s pretty sure he knows what he likes.

He brings his hand up to stroke the rest of Sokka’s dick, looking up. Sokka’s gorgeous, broad chest is heaving, eyes focused right on Zuko’s face, his hands clenched in the sheets. Zuko shivers. He thinks he’d do this all the time if he could—just this, just Sokka surrounding him, inside him, overwhelming him. Keeping him safe. “Sh— shit, _fuck_ —” Sokka grabs his own hair with his right hand, stretching his body out as he rolls his hips into Zuko.

Zuko sucks harder, skin prickling with Sokka’s heat, the cold of the air around them. “I’m gonna—” Sokka whispers, and Zuko sinks lower, trying to fit as much of Sokka’s dick into his mouth as he can. He _wants_ it. “Oh spirits, Zuko, are you— is that— fuck, _fuck_ —”

Zuko doesn’t know how to say yes, can’t nod, so he gives Sokka a thumbs up.

“Ha—” Sokka laughs, and grinds upwards, choking Zuko briefly before he pulls himself back. “I’m— shit, Zuko—” His breaths come faster, and Sokka groans, hand reaching for Zuko’s. He grips Zuko’s hand hard as he comes into his mouth, hips jerking under Zuko’s hands.

Zuko swallows, because he’s not sure what else to do. He looks up to see a small half-smile on Sokka’s face.

“Dude,” Sokka sighs, flopping backwards with an arm across his eyes. “ _Dude_.”

“Bro,” Zuko deadpans. He lies down next to Sokka, suddenly unsure if he should touch Sokka — which is _absurd_ , he _knows_ — but Sokka might not want to stay, and anyway, he’s—

“Are you gonna come here or what?” Sokka asks, pulling at Zuko’s shoulders until he rolls into Sokka’s body. “It’s like trying to herd penguin-cats with you.”

“I have no idea what that means.” Zuko dares to wrap his arm around Sokka’s chest. Sokka sets his hand on the top of Zuko’s wrist, and Zuko sinks deeper into the bed.

Sokka wriggles until he can fit his other arm under Zuko’s head, his fingers playing with Zuko’s hair. “It just means you never go where anyone tells you to.” Sokka presses a kiss to Zuko’s hair, and Zuko closes his eyes, relaxing even further. “I like that.”

Zuko huffs a laugh into Sokka’s skin. “Are you going back to Aang’s room,” Zuko says more than asks, half-asleep already with his face buried in Sokka’s shoulder.

“No way.” Sokka snorts. “I’ve had enough sleeping on a mat on the ground for the rest of my life. If you think I’m giving up a Fire Lord bed— uh, not that you’re Fire Lord yet— shit—”

Zuko laughs. “Good,” is all he can think to say. He’s warm, comfortable. Before he hears a reply, Zuko falls asleep.

* * *

Zuko spends the first moments of the sunrise sitting quietly, looking out onto the capital. Firebenders get up with the sun, but the first hour of the day is for contemplation, which is to say, the city streets aren’t bustling yet. And besides, his father sent all the benders off to war. There are few left in the capital beyond the guards.

Sokka wakes up as Jing, a palace kitchen staff member, walks in with a covered cart.

“I’m happy to go down to the kitchens myself,” Zuko says. “There’s no need to bring me breakfast in bed.”

“Still.” Jing has a courteous smile for both Zuko and Sokka, which is perhaps not surprising, although Zuko flushes anyway. “It is your coronation day. Surely you would prefer to spend your time preparing, rather than coming down to the kitchens.”

Zuko had been thinking about escaping the whole affair by hiding in the kitchens, but probably that wouldn’t work out too well for him. And besides, Sokka looks too excited at the prospect of a catered breakfast for Zuko to turn Jing away. “Thank you, Jing,” he says.

Jing nods, and walks out of the room. “Wow,” Sokka says, sliding out of bed. Zuko turns away, flushing. He’s _naked_. “What, is there something— oh, my bad. One sec, I’ll put something on.”

Zuko turns back just in time to see a shirtless Sokka lacing up his pants, aggravatingly low on his hips. The spirits are testing him. And then, Sokka — to add insult to injury — walks towards breakfast without making any gesture towards putting on a shirt.

Still. The sunrise is generous today, the sky a clear blue and the air warm but not oppressive — an auspicious sign for Zuko’s reign. In the early morning light, Sokka doesn’t look like a bad decision. He just looks beautiful.

“What did the kitchens send us?” Zuko asks, walking towards the food cart.

Sokka removes the plate coverings with glee. “Oh, man. I don’t know what half of this stuff is but it looks amazing. Is that an eel-squid?”

“They’re common in the waters on the west side of the island.” Zuko picks one up with his fingers and slurps it down. “Do you want to eat on the balcony?”

“Livin’ the big life now, huh,” Sokka says, but he gamely picks up the tray of food and brings it to the balcony while Zuko follows, shamed. Which Sokka notices. As he sits, Sokka adds, “I just meant— I mean, it’s nice to eat on a balcony, is all.”

“It’s shameful for this to be my situation, when people around the world struggle just to eat because of a war my family caused.” Zuko remains standing on the threshold between his room and the balcony.

Sokka sighs. “You can’t change it today. You can’t change it in the time it would take you to eat breakfast. And you just fought—” _your own sister_ , Zuko thinks, but Sokka cuts himself off. “We all had to suffer to be here. You can have this. Just once, please, just— just have something good.”

“Complacency gave us war,” Zuko replies, looking at the sunrise. Every day Agni rose over a people abusing her power. What strength did that take?

“Will you just sit down, Angst Boy,” Sokka mutters, rubbing his forehead. “I want to eat my fancy breakfast, and say, like, _one_ nice thing to you. Can we do that? Can that happen?”

“Yes,” Zuko says, taken aback. He sits down. “Yes, Sokka. Uh, sorry.”

Sokka doesn’t say anything, but he offers Zuko some food, and Zuko knows he's forgiven. They split the tray evenly, abandoning the chopsticks to eat small egg rolls, sweet youtiao with their hands as the sun rises higher.

The stone of the balcony is smooth and white, shining in the daylight. Zuko’s eyes keep catching on Sokka’s smile, the strong, slim bones of his wrist, the slight difference in shade between his dark arms and the parts of his body normally covered by his tunic, the tan lines from his forearm wraps. And then, as if Sokka’s too bright to look at for long, Zuko focuses on the food, and the sounds of the city starting the business day.

Sokka startles him with sticky fingertips on Zuko’s wrist. “Wh—”

“I get to say one nice thing, right?” Sokka asks. Zuko nods. Sokka smiles, gentles his grip into nothing but the press of his index finger, his middle finger, and his thumb around Zuko’s pulse. He says, “Ignoring all that other stuff — the Fire Lord stuff, your firebending, whatever — I believe in _you_. I’m glad it’s you on that throne today, and I’d be glad no matter who the other options are. I trust you.”

Zuko blinks away tears. When his breath steadies, he says, voice only a little wobbly, “Thanks, Sokka.” And then, because he has to ruin a moment, “I think that was three nice things.”

“So he can count, too,” Sokka chuckles. “As if I’d follow Fire Nation rules.” His grin is light, infectious, and Zuko laughs along with him.

He rubs his thumb along the place where Sokka touched him, and wonders if he might be able to keep this.

After Zuko’s coronation, Sokka and Zuko don’t spend much time together, but they do see each other more often than Zuko’s predicted diplomatic events and ambassadorial meetings. For one thing, Sokka stays in the Fire Nation. Zuko didn’t anticipate it at all, but one week turns into two, and Zuko realizes three months in that Sokka isn’t leaving anytime soon.

They usually only see each other when their schedules intersect; Sokka’s official purpose in the Fire Nation is as a sort of de-facto Southern Water Tribe Ambassador, which mostly involves reviewing policy documents and stealing food from the palace kitchens. Sometimes, though, Sokka will barge into Zuko’s room after dinner to gossip about Zuko’s councillors.

“I’m really not supposed to know this,” Zuko sighs, as Sokka runs through the evidence for his theory that Councillor Anzo is secretly in love with Head Chef Enkin. “Sokka, I don’t think that a chef tripping over a stool in the kitchen means there’s a secret love affair happening in the palace.”

“Well, that sounds like a problem with your imagination,” Sokka retorts. “You’re just not thinking big enough.”

“I’m certain that’s not the case, considering I’m reimagining my entire nation’s economy,” Zuko says, squinting at the report in front of him. His advisors keep trying to tell him that economics is technical, scientific, that he should concern himself with affairs of politics and public relations, but people usually don’t commit genocide unless it’s profitable for them. Zuko needs to find a way to make war completely untenable beyond the moral argument.

Sokka’s hand comes to rest on the back of Zuko’s chair. “I know that, Zuko,” he says seriously. Zuko turns to look up at him. “You never take any breaks, do you, buddy?”

“Only a few months in. We haven’t really had cause to celebrate yet.” Zuko turns back to the paper in front of him, and blames his overactive imagination for the prickling sensation at his shoulder, as though Sokka’s hand is radiating enough heat to penetrate his robe.

Then he feels Sokka’s breath against his neck, as Sokka leans down to look over his shoulder at the document. “What are you even looking at, anyway?” he asks, hair brushing against Zuko’s cheek. Zuko swallows. “Seriously, dude. Don’t you have people for this?”

“Not really,” Zuko says hoarsely, the back of his throat dry as an Earth Kingdom desert. He keeps his eyes focused forward.

Sokka’s chin dips down to rest in the hollow of his shoulder. “I think it’s a problem with your industry setup. Privately owned corporations always want bigger markets. If you nationalize, you can plan your economy to avoid overproduction, and then you won’t need to break into Earth Kingdom markets or steal Water Tribe gold.”

It makes sense, and yet— “The councillors will never go for that,” Zuko says. “Half of them have their own private factories and mines. I need a less radical solution.”

“Ah, I don’t have anything for you, then,” Sokka says, stepping back from Zuko’s desk. “Anyway, I’m just a dumb hick. Better off asking one of your Fire Nation experts.”

“No, that’s not—” Zuko turns around and takes Sokka’s hands. Sokka’s palms are warm and dry, calluses catching on Zuko’s fingertips. “Sokka. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

Sokka shrugs.

“Seriously,” Zuko presses. He stands up to face Sokka completely. Somehow, Sokka’s now the same height as Zuko. His shoulders are broader than they were only three months ago. “Your contributions are invaluable.”

“Hah, yeah,” Sokka says, pulling his hands out of Zuko’s grasp. “Thanks, dude, that’s— uh…”

“Well,” Zuko says quickly, realizing he’s overstepped. Sharp panic slides down his spine, perhaps disproportionate to the situation. “I should, uh. Bed.”

“Yeah, me too.” Sokka steps back and grabs his boomerang. “See you?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Zuko watches as Sokka stumbles hurriedly out of the door. As certain as the sun rises, he realizes: _That’s it_. _That’s the end of it_. He wonders if Sokka will get on the next overnight, or if he’ll wait for a chance to say goodbye before leaving Zuko.

Zuko didn’t even think about their respective positions, even though they’re the only things that matter. When he wasn’t Fire Lord yet, it was safe for them to have sex, to have fun with each other— and he’d told Sokka explicitly that that was the only time anything would happen. Now, the stakes are so high… he won’t ever marry within his nation, not when legally, nobody is allowed to say no to him. He wonders if Sokka feels the same pressure to say yes to Zuko’s whims, if Sokka worries about the quality of their peace. Wonders if Sokka has danced around rejecting him out of fear for his people. Wonders if Sokka thinks he’s that kind of monster.

The sick feeling in his stomach twists into nausea, until he has to press his forehead, eyes closed, against his desk for one long minute. _I’ll be better_ , he tells himself, nails biting into his own palms. He’s breathing so fast. The idea that Sokka could have felt— that he’d made Sokka uncomfortable here, in this room, in this palace—

He screams, sends a blast of fire into the wall for a brief second before cutting it short. Eventually, after he has managed to burn four sheets of blank paper and singe his robe, his fire coming stronger and hotter than normal, he forces himself into bed. He lies awake for a long time, wondering when — if ever — he’ll be better.

* * *

As he wakes with the sun, Zuko manages to convince himself that abandoning his palace to live alone in the wilderness would be a worse choice than facing his duties. He is responsible. He is committed to his people. His unseemly behavior towards Sokka will end, and he’ll focus on what he’s good for: being the Fire Lord.

Of course, Sokka hasn’t gotten the memo. Somehow, for the first time in weeks, Sokka is the one accompanying Zuko’s breakfast. The visual of Sokka serving him is at once hateful and terrifying, but Sokka immediately breaks the semblance of servitude by launching into a barrage of delightful rambling.

“I heard you were meeting with your Councillor of Education today so I put myself on breakfast duty,” Sokka starts. “Also, good morning!”

“Morning,” Zuko says. Sokka is too close, even if he’s on the other side of the room. Zuko wasn’t prepared to see him for days, perhaps even weeks, but he’s here now. Sokka in the morning light, casually pouring tea for Zuko and stealing bites of his bacon— Zuko looks away.

“Anyway, education stuff,” Sokka continues, munching away at the Fire Lord’s breakfast. “So I’m thinking, that could be a good engagement project for your ambassadors, right? Like, it’s important, but slightly less high-stakes than the negotiations around the colonies or reparations. Could get some cultural experts to help with the curriculum, bully the Political Council into moving some of their budget over into teacher training, that kind of thing.”

“Do you want to come to the meeting today, Sokka,” Zuko says, trying to sound put-upon rather than what he actually is, which is: internally vibrating at a frequency previously known only to hummingbirds. Why is Sokka _here_?

“Oh, that would be great, thanks for the invite, Zuko!” Sokka says cheerily, as if that wasn’t his plan all along.

Zuko walks towards the food. He can’t hide from Sokka forever. And besides, he thinks, shoving a spoonful of jook into his mouth without meeting Sokka’s eyes, he should be the bigger person and say something.

“Sokka—”

“Zuko—”

“You go first,” Zuko says hurriedly, trying to look up at Sokka’s face and only getting as far as his chin before he panics.

Sokka shrugs. “No, you. I didn’t have anything important to say.”

“I doubt that’s true,” Zuko says, making it sound like an insult when it’s anything but. Sokka doesn’t make any move to continue, though, and Zuko steels himself. “Okay. What I was gonna say…” He downs some tea. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t help. “You don’t owe me anything, Sokka.”

He chances a glance up at Sokka, who looks more confused than anything else. “If this is about the education meeting, I _want_ to go to that. If you didn’t notice, I was pretty much bullying you into inviting me anyway.”

“I got that, dumbass—” Zuko snarks, before wincing. Ah yes. Make fun of the man you made unwanted advances towards. Very polite. “I mean. That’s not what I meant.”

Sokka tilts his head consideringly, and squats in front of Zuko, seated on the floor eating his jook. He puts his hand on Zuko’s knee, hot even through Zuko’s sleeping pants. “I know I don’t owe you anything. I’m here because I want to be here, dude. We’re friends.”

Zuko dips his head into a nod, looking away. Sokka retracts his hand. “Good,” he says hoarsely, trying not to cry in the face of Sokka’s generosity. How many more chances will he get? “I’m glad you’re my friend, Sokka.”

“Me, too, man.” Sokka sits back in front of Zuko, reaching for a steamed bun. “So. What’s this meeting gonna be like? Should I prepare?”

“Maybe you should’ve asked those questions before inviting yourself,” Zuko throws back, and Sokka’s laugh is as open and free as the ocean under Agni’s sky.

* * *

Zuko often takes the liberty of imagining Sokka’s commiserating smile every time there’s an argument in the council room. His generals — _councillors_ , now that the process of demilitarization is taking effect — are arguing about budgets, or perhaps they are arguing about the young people who have come home from war with missing legs and violent rage, or perhaps they are arguing about the sexagenarians in schools around the country who refuse to teach the new curriculum. Always the same things, over and over.

“The problem is this approach to government, this Earth Kingdom bureaucracy,” Gen— _Councillor_ Iping spits. “It will take us months to make a decision in this system!”

“Perhaps it should take us months!” says Councillor Peng. “The war began with a single rash decision.”

“So it is good for our people to languish as we proofread our 500-page healthcare planning document? This is your solution?”

Ah. Another day where no one is right.

“Councillors,” Zuko starts. “Our people need help today. What can be done?”

“Well, I don’t understand why we’re restructuring in the first place,” Iping says. “The system works!”

Peng rolls his eyes. “For soldiers, yes. Not for anyone else. The problem is that our healthcare system is a wing of Veteran Support, rather than its own _civilian_ section.” He turns to Zuko. “Fire Lord, we need time. Time to write clear policies and a budget, to hire civilian management.”

“Are you suggesting that our people are no longer fit to lead us?” Iping interjects, voice quiet but dangerous. “That because we have fought for our nation, we should be replaced with pencil pushers and salesmen?”

Zuko remembers, now. Iping was a close advisor to his father. He was at Ba Sing Se. In all likelihood, Iping has lost much to Sozin’s war.

Zuko has, too. “Our soldiers must be respected, honored, and grieved as they deserve,” he says finally. “But we must never forget that they fought for a tyrant, not for our nation.”

Iping, thank the spirits, nods his head in acquiescence.

“So,” Zuko asks into the silence. “How can we transition out of a militarized health system without losing the coverage we already have?”

One of the quieter councillors — Aki, Zuko thinks — begins her proposal. Despite himself, Zuko wonders what Sokka would think of it. He wonders if he will ever come to trust any of the people in this room.

* * *

As the days go by, Sokka spends more and more time with him. Zuko thinks it’s a coincidence at first, but Sokka takes his lunches and his dinners with Zuko, walks into the training room every morning just as Zuko’s finishing his katas. Sometimes he’ll touch Zuko, a warm palm on Zuko’s forearm or the heat of his thigh against Zuko’s at dinner.

Clearly Sokka is comfortable, Zuko tells himself. They spar, they touch, and Sokka does not immediately run to the showers or flinch subtly from his hands. There are none of the signs of discomfort that Zuko painstakingly learned through observation when he lived in anonymity.

“I got a letter from my dad,” Sokka says, on one of those days when the two of them have stumbled across each other in the gardens and had nowhere else more pressing to be.

Zuko has been thinking, strangely, of Jet. A man he hasn’t seen in months, a man he— he might have loved very briefly, maybe, a man who was so twisted up inside he sometimes made Zuko feel twisted up, too.

Now, looking back on it, Zuko can see it for what it was: Jet wanted Zuko, and Zuko wanted Jet, and neither of them quite understood that they were allowed to want each other and still say no to things. Zuko is still grateful that Jet thought he was worth taking a chance and sometimes getting it wrong — is impressed, even now, that Jet could make Zuko feel desirable, loved that he’d put his hands all over Zuko whenever he wanted, loved that he would push.

Zuko, of course, can’t afford to do that. Of course Sokka’s worth the risk, worth any risk, but the idea that Zuko could put his hands on Sokka when they weren’t wanted is so terrifying, so utterly impossible, that he shies away completely from the idea.

So, instead of taking a risk, Zuko tosses some seeds to the turtleducks and tries to make his voice work. “What did he say?”

“He talked about me becoming Chief,” Sokka says. “I don’t have to worry about it now, obviously, but it’s something I need to think about in the future, if I want it.”

“Of course.” Zuko tries to imagine weaning himself off Sokka in time for his inevitable return to the South Pole, and he can’t. This, already — a peaceful day next to the turtleduck pond — is more than he deserves, and he still wants more. He wants more every day. “You’d make an excellent leader.”

“Yeah, right,” Sokka snorts, flopping back onto the grass. Zuko’s eyes catch his shoulders, his thighs, and he looks away quickly. “I dunno. I’m not ready for that, not yet.”

“You have time.” At the very least, Sokka will have a mentor in his father. Amidst the wreckage Zuko’s people have made of his life, Sokka still has that.

Zuko hears a breath, but Sokka doesn’t say anything. Zuko asks, “Were you going to say something?”

“No, no—” Sokka sits up. “What’s happening with you? How’s the Fire Lord-ing?”

“The Fire Lord-ing,” Zuko repeats, laughing. “Spirits, Sokka. The Fire Lord-ing is fine.”

“What about that guy, who was it, the one who’s opposing the healthcare demilitarization?”

“ _Iping_ ,” Zuko sighs. He rests his head on his knees. “Honestly, Peng’s worse, just because he’s more of a bureaucrat. At least Iping is committed to our people—he just thinks the way to help them is by keeping everything the same.”

“Right. See, this is why you should let me into the council meetings. I wouldn’t take any shit from your councillors, dude.”

“I know.” That’s the problem, Zuko thinks. The idea of his peers — the people at the highest level of government, the ones he’s supposed to have authority over — knowing how important Sokka is to him — the idea of sharing it, sharing moments like these, is terrifying, and he’s not quite sure why.

They watch the turtleducks for a long moment, their little wings flapping around. Zuko wonders what Sokka would say if he launched a solid mass of feed at the turtleducks the way Azula did, the way Zuko learned to do. Whether Sokka would take the time to tell him he did something wrong, or whether he’d just walk away.

“Dad also wrote about my mom,” Sokka says, and Zuko nods again. Another violence inflicted by the Fire Nation.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s not—” Zuko looks over to see Sokka’s knees pulled up to his chest, his head bowed low between them. Muffled, Sokka continues, “He said he’s with someone now.”

“Oh.” Zuko doesn’t know how to deal with this. He thinks that probably if he were in Sokka’s shoes, he’d kill his father for setting eyes on another woman; but then again, he’d throw a party if his mother came home with a new husband.

“It’s Bato.” Sokka’s voice is so low that Zuko almost doesn’t hear him, but then he does. “He— I can’t remember if you ever met him, but I feel like you must have. He was a friend of my dad’s, growing up. I called him Uncle.”

“Are you happy for them?” is all Zuko can think to ask, because the rest of it is so impossible. Sozin’s laws were never able to make people _hate_ men who slept with men, precisely, but the idea of it was so wasteful, when more babies could be born for the war machine instead. Zuko knows of same-gender sex as an indulgence, nothing serious. Not anything real. He wonders what Sokka grew up knowing about men who fall in love with other men. He wonders what Sokka would think of Zuko, if he knew how Zuko felt about him. 

Sokka shrugs. “Yeah, obviously, and it— I guess it makes sense, it’s just.” His mouth twists. “It feels like he went away, and he was _gone_ , he didn’t even— Bato was the one who took me ice dodging, you know? My dad wasn’t even there to see me become a man. And then he came back and he’s— is it wrong of me to feel like he’s a whole new person?”

Zuko thinks about it. He wonders if Azula might have felt the same way, when she first saw him after those long years of banishment. “No,” he decides. “I don’t think you’re wrong. He probably is different. Time away from home changes a person.”

Zuko wishes he could have spoken to his sister, had a real conversation with her, when she came to him that first time after he was exiled, rather than being so overcome by the idea of his father lifting his banishment. Every day he wonders what could’ve happened if he hadn’t fought against his imprisonment on her ship. “If you love him, then honor who he is now. Understand that he’s different, but at heart, he’s still your father.”

Sokka nods, picking at the grass next to his feet. Eventually, he says, voice watery but still bright, “You sound like Uncle Iroh.”

Zuko cracks a smile, watching him. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Nerd.” Sokka throws a few blades of grass at him. “You got any gray hairs yet, Uncle Zuko?”

“Please, no,” Zuko laughs.

The turtleducks quack happily in their pond; Sokka eventually flops back to snore his way through an afternoon nap; Zuko, who has been blessed with more second chances than any person deserves, watches Sokka and tells himself to be grateful for what he has.

* * *

Ozai loved Zuko, perhaps, the way Azulon before him loved Ozai. The way clams in the sea love grit, spitting and spitting until something wrenches out the pearl, unyielding as earth and bright like fire.

It’s not the way Zuko wants to love anyone else, but he has begrudgingly learned to understand Ozai’s particular brand of cruelty. After a hundred years of building industry to feed the war machine, it’s undoubtedly easier to continue living in war, a war which in turn tends to live on in private rooms, in quiet gardens, in the domestic parts of life that should be reserved for washing clothes and cooking food. Every day Zuko feels himself battling uphill and wondering whether it’s worth it—whether he can do anything that would make a difference to the men whose retirements have been paid for by trebuchet contracts and coal mines.

In Zuko’s own private room, it is an impassioned letter addressed to _Fire Lord Zuko_ that reveals the stark extent of the problem.

 _My daughter is sick_ , writes—begs—a young mother. No father mentioned, which is not so unusual in a nation of soldiers. _She wakes every morning with fluid in her lungs_. Under the old regime, such a child would undoubtedly have been jettisoned for the waste. A child lucky to have been born at all.

 _Because I have never been a soldier, I cannot go to the clinic in my town_ , she continues. _It is ten miles to the nearest civilian health center in Gojang, even though the medicine my daughter needs is stored in a building two streets away from me. I never thought much of this growing up. My mother died from a coughing disease, because no one in our family had anything to do with the war so we could not see the military doctors. I thought this was correct; I thought it was right that soldiers who fought for the Fire Nation should take precedence above the people in my community who took care of me directly by feeding me and housing me._

_I have since come to realize that this was wrong. My daughter has the right to life. We all have a right to life, not only those of us who have sacrificed our bodies for the last Fire Lord._

_When the soldiers used to come through our town, they were violent towards us women. This is why my daughter has no father. There are no more new soldiers, but still the rules remain. Why should the men who rape my fellow countrywomen receive care in my town, while I walk ten miles to Gojang?_

_I cried when I read your speech in our newspaper. You said you would change the legacy of the Fire Nation. I had hope, and I hope still that you will live up to your promises._

_What legacy will you leave behind, Fire Lord Zuko? Will my daughter live to see it?_

Zuko’s hand shakes as he sets the parchment down gently. It is signed only with the writer’s name: _Nia_.

For Nia the war is and has always been untenable. For Nia, the war was nothing but evil. It brought sickness and cruelty and death to her, as it did to Zuko, with none of the obscene profit that Zuko reaps today. He wonders how big Nia’s house is. Whether she has one. Whether the entirety of her home even reaches the size of Zuko’s bedroom, which makes up a fraction of his bloated palace.

And the particular gendered violence she describes. Rape. It’s an obscenity — a relic of a distant past, something only found in the backwards water tribes, according to what Zuko learned growing up. But when he thinks of Song… he’s not sure it surprises him to find out about the horrors his soldiers have committed against their own people.

“Zuko?” It’s Sokka. Of course it’s Sokka, who has been generously kind to Zuko — Zuko the Fire Lord, pathetic, crying in his room over a letter that has done nothing but reveal the violence inherent to the system his great-grandfather built.

Zuko pushes away from the table, letting Nia’s letter curl back up. “Sokka,” he says, hoarse, rubbing his eyes clear before turning around. “What can I help you with?”

“Uh.” Sokka looks at the letter on his desk, and Zuko sighs. Sokka’s expression turns consoling. “Breakup letter?”

“No—” Zuko chokes, almost laughs at the absurdity of it. As though he’s had time for romantic entanglements alongside his duties. “Spirits, Sokka. It’s not a breakup letter.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Sokka chuckles, stepping forward and letting the door shut behind him. A little more seriously, he adds, “Wanna talk about what’s actually going on?”

Zuko wonders what Sokka would say if he read the letter. _My mother was killed by the Fire Lord’s war, too_ , Sokka might say. _Your people are the reason I became a militia commander at thirteen_.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Zuko finally replies, standing up from his desk. “What brings you to my room tonight?”

“I just wanted to say hey.” Sokka walks over to Zuko’s desk. “Some other stuff, too, but right now I’m curious about the letter.”

“It’s none of your concern.” _I’m the one who signed up to be the Fire Lord_ , Zuko doesn’t say. He doesn't need to; they both know who here has amends to make.

Sokka puts his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Sheesh, Fire Lord Grumpy.”

“Don’t call me that.” Zuko knows he’s more prickly than usual — it’s Nia’s letter, or the violence behind it, or the frustration of almost half a year without headway. Regardless, he knows tonight he’s better off alone. Let the fireproof stone walls take his anger. “Good night, Sokka.”

“Don’t do that,” Sokka wheedles. He insinuates himself into Zuko’s personal space. “Come on. Wanna go look at the stars? Some sleeping turtleducks?”

“I’m not your boyfriend, Sokka,” Zuko says, standing stock still as Sokka tugs at the sleeve of his robes. “Ask one of the literally dozens of Fire Nation girls with crushes if you want to go out on a date.”

“ _Dozens_?” Sokka lets go of him, and Zuko tells himself to feel relieved. “Maybe I _should_ ask one of them instead, then.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then—”

“ _Zuko_ ,” Sokka whines. “I was kidding! About the Fire Nation girls, I mean. I was serious about us looking at the turtleducks. You need a break.”

“How hard is this to understand?” Zuko snaps, lunging forward. “I can’t afford to go out right now. I need _sleep_. I need time to read the letters my people send me, and I need you to get _out_ of my room.”

Sokka hums understandingly. “Ah. A letter from one of your critics, then?” He turns to the desk, rolling out the parchment. “I feel like you could delegate these. Your time is valuable, you know.”

“ _Put that down_.” Zuko can barely recognize his voice, but Sokka releases the parchment instantly, its ends snapping tightly back together. “It was addressed to me, and it’s for me to read.”

“I’m sorry,” Sokka says placatingly, stepping away from the desk. “I just— it doesn’t make sense for the Fire Lord to be reading random letters, okay? That’s just a fact! You’re busy, dude. You need chill time, or you’re gonna go off like a war cannon one of these days.”

“It’s not for you to decide what I read and what I don’t read,” Zuko snarls, stripping off his outer robes to leave him in the undershirt and loose pants he usually sleeps in, trying to signal his desire for solitude. “Get out of here, Sokka.”

“I’m not here to _harass_ you,” Sokka says. “It’s just, every time I see you, you look more and more like weird honor-obsessed Zuko with the stupid ponytail — _emotionally_ , I mean, your hair looks great — and I worry.” Sokka laughs, but Zuko doesn’t hear it, what with the roaring in his ears after Sokka’s casual _honor-obsessed_ , thrown around like it means nothing. “Like, for the safety of your generals sometimes, but mostly about you.”

“You think I’ll hurt someone like this,” Zuko realizes, something going numb and cold in his chest, and Sokka abruptly sobers. Zuko imagines challenging General Yin to an Agni Kai. He’s met General Yin’s children. They differ in opinion on almost every subject, but Zuko has had enough of settling disputes with violence, now that he has the power to change things with words. “You think I’d— you think I’d do that, that I’d—”

“No, of course not,” Sokka says. He laughs again, nervously. “You’re just, you know. Kinda scary. In a good way! And an, uh, emotionally responsible way, except for how you’re like, not taking care of yourself, but that’s totally chill—”

Zuko shoves him against the wall next to the desk, forearm against Sokka’s collarbone. He feels dizzy. “This isn’t a joke.”

“No,” Sokka replies, quiet and serious. “It’s not. You need help, Zuko.”

“I need you to trust me to do my job.” His arm feels strangely sensitive to the night air, to the heat of Sokka’s skin exposed by his v-neck. He can see Sokka’s chest moving with his breath. He should— he should let him go. “I’m not a child.”

“I know that, too.” Sokka lifts his chin up, defiantly, and Zuko can’t help it. He leans closer, breathless. Their noses are almost touching.

Zuko looks down to escape Sokka’s gaze, but their bodies against each other are no better. He watches as Sokka slowly, carefully, puts a hand up against Zuko’s hip, hot even through Zuko’s undershirt. He shudders out a breath. “Sokka—”

“I came here to distract you,” Sokka murmurs. “Let me?”

“Is that really why you came?” Zuko lets his arm relax, brings his other arm up so that both of his hands rest on Sokka’s shoulders. He should pull away. He should step back, give Sokka a clear berth, but Sokka doesn’t— he doesn’t _look_ uncomfortable, and Zuko just. He can’t.

He feels Sokka shrug. “I have some news, too, but—”

“What is it?” Zuko steps back, but Sokka grips his wrist. “Sokka.”

“It’s fine, everything’s—” Sokka shakes his head frustratedly. “I’m.” All of a sudden, like he’s ripping off a bandage, Sokka says, “They’re calling me back to help with the Southern Water Tribe reconstruction.”

“Oh.” Zuko shakes Sokka’s hand off his wrist. “I see.”

“I didn’t want to tell you this tonight,” Sokka says. “Or, I did, but I saw— you were so, you’ve been so stressed—”

“Where you go doesn’t make a difference to me,” Zuko says, looking away, but Sokka doesn’t need to see his face to know it’s a lie.

Sokka’s palms both settle, hot, on Zuko’s waist. “Please don’t be mad,” he says, in that soft voice that always makes Zuko flush. Zuko lets him nose up against his throat. “I didn’t want to tell you,” he murmurs. Zuko shudders at the feeling of his breath against his skin. “I mean, I wanted to, but— I also didn’t. It’s stupid, but I never want you to be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” Zuko says honestly, and gives in to the impulse to run his hands through Sokka’s hair, undoing the tie that keeps it up in his wolftail. It’s irresponsible of him to let this happen when Sokka’s an ambassador, when Zuko has more power than anyone in the world except for Aang, when the palace they’re standing in was built by the destruction of Sokka’s people— _but Sokka started it_ , he thinks, hating himself all the while.

Sokka kisses the skin under his jaw, and Zuko closes his eyes. “It’s not a big deal,” Zuko continues. That part’s a lie, but it’s a lie that will let them have this, whatever it is. Romance isn’t in the cards for Zuko for a number of reasons, but this — closeness, Sokka pressed against his body, just for a night — maybe he can have this. At least while Sokka’s offering.

Sokka kisses him, and Zuko sighs in relief. They don’t have to talk about it, about Sokka leaving because Zuko is barely fit for friendship, let alone the kind of relationship you abandon your people for. It’s just skin, and heat, and Sokka’s rough hands gripping Zuko tight. He’s dizzy from the taste of Sokka’s mouth, he wants to— he _wants_.

“Spirits,” Sokka breathes into his mouth, pulling Zuko close as he leans back into the wall. Zuko crowds in, the fire under his skin suddenly urgent.

He doesn’t have the words for it, can’t talk the way Sokka can, but he— he presses his open mouth against Sokka’s jaw, his earlobe, his neck and his collarbone, pushing Sokka’s shirt up with his desperate hands until Sokka gets the picture and takes it off. He buries his face in Sokka’s chest, hungry for the feeling of Sokka’s skin under his palms.

“Sh—it,” Sokka hisses when Zuko licks his nipple. “Fuck. Zuko—”

Zuko looks up and catches his eye. He feels— he feels sexy, and, and _precious_ , certain that his eyelashes are fluttering as he rides the high of Sokka’s desire. His fingers clench around Sokka’s hips, and Sokka groans, which is enough to push Zuko back on track.

He drops to his knees. “Oh, shit,” Sokka whispers, awed.

Zuko nudges his way between Sokka’s legs. “Yeah?” he asks, hearing his voice scratch rough against his own throat.

“Yeah, yep, yes—” Sokka says hurriedly, and Zuko muffles a laugh in his thigh. “Look at that! A smile from Fire Lord Grumpy!”

“ _Stop_ calling me that.” Zuko lets go of Sokka’s hips. “Unless you want me to stop…”

“I will never say it again,” Sokka swears, and Zuko grabs the backs of Sokka’s thighs, pulling himself forward.

Zuko’s hands pause at the waistband of Sokka’s pants, though. “Are you sure?” he breathes, barely loud enough for Sokka to hear.

“Yeah.” Sokka sets his broad palm against Zuko’s cheek, heat bleeding into his skin, and Zuko shivers with it. All of it is impossible, the surreal intensity of Sokka holding him close, Sokka’s long and muscular legs. The things he wants. “Zuko,” Sokka says, soft and grateful and needy, and Zuko keeps his eyes open to watch as he pulls Sokka’s pants down.

“You look good down there,” Sokka laughs, and Zuko can feel himself turning bright red. “I want— can I—?” Zuko stays on his knees, rapt, as Sokka pulls his underclothes down, too.

The gravity of this—the fact that he hasn’t seen Sokka like this since the last time, Sokka’s beautiful hips, his dick— “Fuck me,” Zuko whispers, and then covers his face in embarrassment when he realizes he’s spoken aloud. “Spirits. Sokka—”

“No, don’t do that,” Sokka says, prying Zuko’s hands from his face. “Hey. Is this okay? I can put my pants back on if you want—”

“Don’t,” Zuko blurts out. “I. I want to.” He’s _desperate_ to. He can’t make himself say anything else, doesn’t even know how, but he presses a kiss against the soft skin of Sokka’s inner thigh, and hears Sokka’s head slam back against the wall.

He wants— he wants to feel Sokka in the back of his throat, deeper than last time. He wants to do everything with Sokka.

He starts by pressing a kiss to the tip of Sokka’s dick. “Fuck,” Sokka says, emphatically, setting his hand against Zuko’s face, the right side of it. His good side. He’s covering it up, but he still looks— he still looks at Zuko like he’s, like he’s— ”Beautiful.” Sokka laughs, thumbing Zuko’s cheekbone as Zuko opens his mouth, licks wet at his cock. “You might be the prettiest man I’ve ever seen.”

“Shut up,” Zuko mutters, flushing, bringing his hands up to jerk Sokka to hardness.

“N— no, I’m serious,” Sokka stutters, his right hand clenching against the wall.

The feeling of his dick twitching in Zuko’s grasp — the smell of him, heady, profane, the obscenity of it — and Sokka’s hand, still warm on his face, makes Zuko’s head spin. He puts his mouth on Sokka’s dick and it fills his mouth, rests heavy on his tongue. Spirits it’s so good—

“D— did you just—” Sokka cuts himself off with a quiet grunt, high in his throat that sends shivers down Zuko’s neck. “Did you just _moan_? You like it that much?”

Zuko makes another choked sound in his throat, grunting against Sokka’s dick in his mouth. Yeah, he does, he likes it too much to pull off and actually tell Sokka that so instead he moves his hands to Sokka’s hips so he can push himself further down, so fucking desperate for it.

It’s like his hands have been scrubbed down, hypersensitive to Sokka’s warm skin, the flexing of his thigh muscles. He moves one hand to fondle Sokka’s balls because he _wants_ it, wants to feel Sokka in his hands, his fingertips, hungry for contact.

“Shit, fuck,” Sokka gasps, “okay, wait, that’s— Zuko, you gotta, I’m gonna come, do you want—”

Zuko pulls off to inhale sharply, and then licks Sokka’s dick again, pulls it into his mouth so he can try to fit all of it in him. It’s what he wants. If he ever did this again he thinks he’d want to train himself for it, take Sokka’s cock every day until he learned how to deepthroat him perfectly—

“Spirits,” Sokka hisses, and then, “Zuko, can you— can you press your thumb, just, further back—”

It’s an abominable description but Zuko knows exactly what he means. He puts a whole hand between Sokka’s legs, presses two fingers hard and steady against his perineum, rubs gently, and Sokka moans, loud and expansive, shameless.

“Fuck, yeah, yes—” Sokka groans, his dick twitching in Zuko’s mouth, his hand hot against Zuko’s face. “You are so— Zuko, fuck, I’m—” He jolts, and Zuko breathes through his nose as his eyes well up, Sokka’s cock pushing through his orgasm. He comes in Zuko’s mouth and Zuko swallows, feeling filthy, absolutely used. _Well-loved_ , he thinks, and immediately reprimands himself for the audacity.

“Tui and La,” Sokka sighs, slanting his head back against the wall, as Zuko pulls off. “Zuko. I feel like I just— I don’t even know what to say.”

Zuko cracks a grin. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He watches Sokka’s cock twitch feebly as he speaks. “Your voice,” Sokka whispers, and then covers his face. “How. How is the most beautiful man in the world into me.”

“Please stop talking,” Zuko says, and doesn’t say _because if you compliment me one more time I’ll come in my pants_. He shifts his weight back and the movement drags his pants over his dick, soft and almost unbearable.

Sokka grins. “Are you hard?” he asks, and Zuko nods mutely. Sokka kneels down next to Zuko, pushing him back until he’s sprawled awkwardly, his hands on the floor behind him. “Can I—?”

Sokka reaches for Zuko’s pants, and Zuko inhales, sharply. “Yeah— yes,” he stutters, lifting his hips as Sokka pulls his pants down. “Sokka—”

“Lemme look at you,” Sokka says, and Zuko goes warm. Then Sokka says, “That looks uncomfortable, here, let me—” and he pulls Zuko up to a kneel, his warm hands pushing Zuko’s shirt up. “Take this off for me?”

“Yeah,” Zuko breathes hoarsely, pulling his shirt over his head. He puts it on the ground next to him and then turns to look at Sokka’s face. His eyes are darting across Zuko’s body, like he’s assessing him, taking him in, and Zuko’s cock twitches humiliatingly. He can feel a flush spreading down his chest. “Sokka, just—”

“Want me to touch you?” Sokka knees forward and presses a kiss to the side of Zuko’s neck, hands trailing down to his hips. “I was just enjoying the view.”

Zuko’s forehead dips forward into Sokka’s shoulder, breath coming fast and heavy. “Can you just—”

Sokka wraps his hand around Zuko’s dick and Zuko gasps. It feels— it feels electric, he’s so close already, Agni— “I’m— I’m gonna—”

“Spirits, already?” Sokka bites into the skin below Zuko’s jaw, a gentle but unyielding pressure, and Zuko whines, gripping Sokka’s forearms as he strokes Zuko’s dick. “That’s amazing. Tell me— tell me what you like. What you want.”

“Anything, I’m just—” Zuko’s breath hitches as Sokka’s palm closes over the head of his dick.

“I see,” Sokka murmurs, and moves his other hand to stroke Zuko’s dick, licking his way into the hollow of Zuko’s collarbone. “Yeah?”

“Yeah—” Zuko groans as his thighs shake. “Just— Sokka—” and he comes like that, curled into Sokka the way Sokka is curled into him, so hard his ears pop. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —”

“Uh huh,” Sokka mutters nonsensically, stroking him through it, Zuko twitching under him. “Woah.”

Zuko pushes him away once he gets too sensitive to bear it. He flops back to lie down, right there on his floor, and Sokka immediately follows, crushing him.

The air suddenly feels so cold on his cooling skin compared to Sokka’s heat, the lightning that follows his hands on Zuko’s body. Eventually, Zuko prods them both into bed, resting his head on Sokka’s chest under the warm blankets.

“You know I still owe you a blowjob from last time,” Sokka says lightly, and Zuko flinches. This was— he’d _thought—_ Sokka frowns. “Hey. That was— that was a joke, I’m just saying, I wanna—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Zuko says quietly. His hands are shaking. “Is that— is that what you feel like?”

“No, of course not.” Sokka brushes Zuko’s hair out of his face. “I was just saying I wanted to.”

Zuko exhales, trying not to let his anxieties ruin this night for Sokka. Even if Sokka felt uncomfortable — even if this was more than just a desire to get off, more complicated than their friendship usually is — it won’t do any good to dwell on it now. It would be worse to force Sokka to reassure him that he’s not a monster, since it wouldn’t change anything.

“But this was okay?” Zuko can’t help asking, rolling onto his back. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to watch Sokka prepare to lie to him.

“Yeah, it was better than okay, what are you talking about?” Sokka pokes Zuko’s face until he opens his eyes. Sokka smiles. “I liked it.”

Zuko nods, and tells himself to accept it. A moment of weakness on his part, but it’s done. It’s done. And Sokka’s going back to the Water Tribe soon, and he won’t have to look at Zuko ever again if he doesn’t want to.

Sokka rolls over to cuddle Zuko, arms wrapped around him protectively, and Zuko lets himself enjoy it.

* * *

News spreads from one town to another, through newspapers and kalesa drivers and laborers cleaning the new nation’s streets. “The Fire Lord’s shutting it down,” is the general consensus, although what “it” is remains up for debate. The commercial workers and farmers are, broadly speaking, pleased that the war machine churning out damaged, rotten, violent youth is powering down. The factory unions are unsure of their future, worried that “it” is their factory, their section, their town. Like kindling, the rumors settle into place, until all it takes is a single word to spark a flame.

The first spitting fire begins in a northern mining town, as far from the caldera as possible without leaving the Fire Nation homeland. Like a dog shedding fleas, the mine’s man camps and food tents vent workers and money in violent spurts. At the town’s edge, this buzzing migration meets the people — bartenders, sex workers, caregivers — who have scraped by thanks only to the inebriated noblesse oblige of the mine workers, and friction gives birth to a riot.

The provincial militia tamps down this first protest, but a second rises up in a neighboring village. The southern war factories shift to agricultural equipment and construction materials with relative ease, while the northern production outposts crack and fester. It’s their distance from the caldera, or the unsettling camaraderie between factory owners and provincial governors, in the rare cases where they are not one and the same. A third protest for an end to exploitation, for support from their government, breaks the dam in the north; the flood of revolt sweeps down one mountain, and then a second.

Summer, meanwhile, grows into its heat, in solidarity with the people who are too poor or too stubborn to leave.

A slug dies on an open road built to transit zinc and silver from out of the ground into the next province’s smelting factory. The flies gather, humming eulogies, and bear witness to the rats who join the slug. A hot summer this year, say the farmers, the small old men in their storefronts and the lean young people who harvest the rice. Hotter than last year, croak the gaunt parents huddled over their too-quiet children. The open road gathers corpses and pests.

As infants and their grandparents feed the vultures in the streets — not enough shade or food to spare in Agni’s summer — the people’s wrath finds its way to the Fire Lord.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavy on the Zuko angst, folks. Please be warned that there is a short but extreme self-hating monologue partway through — it follows Sokka's letter. This chapter is also the reason for the "food issues" tag. If you need more details, just message me over on tumblr at @agoodsoldier.
> 
> Azula also appears in this chapter. I have very complicated feelings about psychiatric violence and the idea of madness — so complicated that I couldn't really articulate them in this chapter. So, broad warning for the word "crazy" and for Zuko trying to think about and treat his sister with both kindness and accountability.

The boat that takes Sokka away one morning brings Aang and Katara. The city meets the Avatar with raucous celebration, which is matched in intensity by Zuko’s private welcome.

“It’s good to see you,” Zuko says that afternoon, once they get together for their welcome lunch in the garden, and it is. Aang was the first person to believe he could be a good person, other than Uncle. Katara was the person who helped him figure out _how_.

Katara gives him a strong hug, with firm biceps, and he realizes he hasn’t seen them in almost a year. It’s amazing he was able to have Sokka for so long. Aang, of course, has somehow shot up two inches, leaving Zuko seriously worried that Aang will be taller than him by the time he hits sixteen.

The garden is quiet today, most of the turtleducks napping in the reeds, far away from where Zuko’s set up a picnic blanket. There are some small mounds in the ground—Zuko suspects cricket-pups might be burrowing their way around the garden.

“It’s so hot,” Katara says, kneeling on the picnic blanket. She bends water across the back of her neck to cool herself down. “It’s nice, though.”

“Sokka always complained about it,” Zuko says, with an embarrassingly fond note in his voice. “But yes. I like it.”

“Reminds me of Kyoshi Island.” Aang falls onto his back, looking up at the sky. “Hey, do you guys think that cloud looks like Appa?”

Katara cranes her neck up. “More like that weird library owl,” she concludes. The conversation moves on from there, to the shapes of other clouds (“A… dumpling?” Zuko tries, to Katara and Aang’s laughter), the weather of the Fire Nation (“I love monsoon season,” Aang says excitedly), and, eventually, the coordinated post-war recovery effort that now has an official name: the Harmony Restoration Movement.

“It would be nice to have representatives from all of the other nations to help out at the Air Temples,” Aang says. Zuko nods absentmindedly. “We could try to get Earth Kingdom researchers to help organize our scrolls… and there’s lots of rain damage that waterbenders could help with. And it’d be cool to have a firebender to, uh, dry stuff off, and to show, you know…” He spreads his hands wide, like he’s framing a festival banner. “International Cooperation!”

“It’s a good idea,” Katara says. “It’s important for the world to see we’re all invested in rebuilding.”

It’s not a rebuke, but Zuko feels cowed anyway. “Yeah,” he replies quietly, thinking about how he can make it clearer that he wants the movement to succeed.

Katara eyes Zuko shrewdly. “How are things here, Zuko?”

He shrugs. Something makes a noise in the turtleduck pond, and Zuko shakes off a chill. “We’re transitioning the war factories, the healthcare system. It’s going well, I guess. It’s…” Katara and Aang are safe to talk about this with, he thinks. Maybe even safer than Sokka, for him, considering. “It’s tough,” he admits, shoving another bun into his mouth. He swallows. “Like my father’s everywhere I look. I can’t just start from the ground up. All of the councillors lived in the palace under Ozai.”

Aang sits up. “Why can’t you hire new people?”

“Where would they go? Can I imprison my whole government?” Zuko sighs. “It’s not that. Half of them are… decent, and the other half will go soon enough.” He shivers, despite the sweltering heat. He digs his chin into his knees as his voice hardens. “They were all there, when…” He motions at his face broadly.

Aang blinks.

“Is that—” Katara grips her water flask, and Zuko knows she’s thinking of the spirit water. Quietly, she asks, “Do you mean your scar?”

Zuko realizes, suddenly, that it would have been a foolish military tactic to advertise the banishment of the heir to the dragon throne. Somehow… somehow, they don’t _know_.

Zuko had thought his shame followed him like a wanted poster, every detail of his humiliation bared for the world to see. Now, though, he understands what he really was to Ozai: a secret shame, an embarrassment to the family. Zuko and his faults were banished to the sea in the hope that he would die quietly, like an unwanted pest.

He realizes he’s hyperventilating when Aang grabs Zuko’s hands, holding them tight. “Zuko, breathe,” he says, exaggerating his inhales and exhales until Zuko can follow along with them. “Great, that’s great. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four.”

Zuko tightens his grip on Aang’s hands, closing his eyes. “Thank you, Aang,” he says softly, when he’s gathered himself.

Katara’s glaring at the ground when he looks up. “Katara—”

“I thought it was just… I don’t know. A birthmark. Not something— not something other people could have seen.”

“I wasn’t born like this,” Zuko says quickly, somehow desperate to dispel the notion that he was always like this, always marked by his father. These days, it represents resistance in place of dishonor, but Zuko will never forget that there was a time before either. He continues, now antsy to get the words out as fast as possible, “My father burned me in an Agni Kai.”

Katara gasps. She finally meets his eyes, and Zuko is shocked to see tears there. “I’m sorry, Zuko,” she whispers.

“It was a long time ago,” Zuko says roughly, shaking off Aang’s grasp and clenching his fists. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“How old were you when he burned you?” Aang asks, seriously but practically, as if the answer is something technical and not what it really is, which is: expansive, brutal; disgusting and fervent. _Personal_. Aang’s hands are trembling, though, and Zuko realizes he’s holding in his rage.

Zuko exhales. “Thirteen.”

Katara swears softly. “That’s. That’s not okay,” Aang says, sounding younger than he ever has since Zuko saw him that first time, on his warship at the South Pole. “You were just a kid.”

“I know.” Zuko reaches for another bun, tearing it into pieces. He pops a quarter of the bun into his mouth, enjoying the comforting taste, one of the few reminders of his childhood that doesn’t pull him into an unbearable spiral of guilt and fear and hatred. “I’ve come to understand that my father’s violence was part of the whole system. I’m going to do better than he ever did.”

“I believe in you,” Katara says fiercely.

Zuko nods gratefully, and Aang sits down, seems to settle into himself. Zuko wonders if Aang was worried about entering the Avatar state, about losing control, over Zuko.

After a long pause, Zuko finally clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, uh,” he starts, and then winces. _Nice one, Zuko_. He tries again. “Eat?”

 _Very_ eloquent, he thinks, but Katara smiles at him, and Aang shoves a whole sponge cake into his mouth. “Spirits, Aang—”

“Your dad wouldn’t like to see the Avatar eating all his favorite snacks, would he, huh, Zuko?” Aang replies, sponge cake crumbs pouring out through his wide grin. Then he gulps his cake down, and his grin gentles into a genuine smile. “He wouldn’t like what you’ve done with the Fire Nation, but I like it. I’m proud of you.”

“And I’m proud of your chefs,” Katara adds, pulling her weight on the Distract Zuko front. Zuko laughs, pouring himself more tea, feeling light and airy, like he could fly away into the sky, without a care on the earth.

As it turns out, this will be the last time Zuko puts food in his mouth without worry, for the rest of his life.

* * *

Zuko is alone when he falls to his knees, retching into a quiet corner, the red-orange sun setting on him through the pillars few and far between, a strange whistling in his ears.

Zuko doesn’t even think of poison. The pain is inexplicable and chaotic, sudden and brutal, like lightning. The faint flush on his cheeks after lunch is easily explained by the tiredness that follows him every day, the shivers down his spine all too common after hours of arguing against former military generals desperate to hold onto any scrap of power, and then suddenly — a bolt of brutal pain that slices from his throat to his thigh, so sharp he looks down at himself as though he could have missed a dagger slashing through him.

 _I’m going to die here_ , he thinks, bending over to hack bile up onto the floor, echoing in the empty corridor. His head dips below the balcony, into shadow. The spots in his vision dance like spirits, making faces that scatter when he looks too closely. _I’m going to die with the sun tonight_. It hurts so bad— his skin prickles, his eyes water with it, shivers running up and down his back like he’s caught a fever.

“Fire Lord!” someone calls from the end of the hallway, and then there’s footsteps running, all of them shouting _Fire Lord_ , and Zuko thinks, _let me hear my own name before I die, just once_ —

* * *

“Hi,” Avatar Roku says when Zuko wakes up. He blinks, and his vision tilts. The person in front of him is Aang, baby face and all. Aang continues, “You scared us there.”

“Aang,” Zuko rasps. Aang holds a cup to his face and bends water away from Zuko’s shirt when it misses his mouth. “What happened?”

“Someone poisoned you.” Aang sets the cup down gently, but Zuko can see that he’s angry. “Someone tried to kill you.”

“Not the first time.” Zuko laughs softly, leaning back. An assassination attempt makes sense. The sun wasn’t dragging him down into the spirit world with it; this was just another person. A person with anger and fervor and the commitment to follow through. “They catch whoever it was?”

“This is a big deal!” Aang says. “Don’t just— don’t laugh about it.”

Zuko nods. “Aang,” he whispers, already fading. “Don’t stay here.”

“What?” Aang leans over him, and Zuko realizes his eyes are slipping shut. “Zuko, what?”

“You don’t have to stay here for me,” he says, letting his eyes finally close. “Don’t let my people stop you from rebuilding the Air Temples. Don’t let this stop you.”

“ _You’re_ my people,” Zuko hears through the ringing in his ears, and he smiles.

* * *

Zuko wakes up for real a full day after the poisoning attempt. Apparently they’d asked Katara to delay her trip back to the Southern Water Tribe to help heal him.

“Thank you,” Zuko says, standing up and feeling shaky on his feet. Aang sits on an air cushion as Katara fusses over his stomach. “Katara. I’m fine.”

“I’m worried,” she says, which is shocking enough for her to admit before she adds, “I spent a lot of time fixing you up, you know. I’m allowed to worry.”

Zuko doesn’t wonder what the point is of even bothering to heal him in the first place, when he’s more likely to die at the hands of his own people than of old age. He lets Katara worry about him and poke and prod at the glands in his neck, because this is part of friendship, too.

“You should step back for a bit,” Katara says, frowning at whatever she notices in his back. He knows he carries stress there, but he meditates with the sun every day, so there shouldn’t be anything too daunting. “You need to relax.”

“Ha,” Zuko scoffs, and then regrets it as Aang sends a gust of wind through his hair. “Hey!”

“You should listen to her,” Aang says. Leaning forward to whisper gleefully, he adds, “She’s scary.”

“Hey!” Katara says, gently snapping water at him. Zuko watches their bending play with wide eyes, unnerved by their casual use of power. “I’m not scary,” Katara grumbles, and Zuko nods blankly.

“Not scary at all,” Zuko affirms — okay, maybe a little sarcastically — and ducks out from her hands when she gives him a chance.

Eventually, he ends up back in bed, on his stomach, Katara doing something that hurts so, so bad at first, and then loosens some tightness in his back that he’d just assumed was a natural part of growing older.

“You thought you were getting _old?_ ” Katara sputters. “Are you— are you _serious?_ You’re eighteen!”

“Almost nineteen,” Zuko says into his pillow.

“Almost nineteen,” Katara repeats incredulously. And then, “You need to do whatever the Fire Nation does for pain. Stretching?”

“Acupuncture!” Aang says excitedly. “Toph freaked me out with it once, but I’ve been learning more about it and it sounds kinda cool. They put little needles in pressure points—”

“Oh, no,” Katara says, “don’t describe it to me, Aang, I don’t want to hear about it. That’s _terrifying_.”

“I’ll consider it,” Zuko says, relaxing into the bed and letting Katara and Aang bicker above him. He won’t really, of course. He barely has time for his day to day activities, let alone taking time off to get pampered. His life was given back to him for a reason: it’s another debt to repay.

* * *

Katara does, eventually, head back to the South Pole to spend some time with her father before Aang joins her. Aang generally flits around making himself a nuisance and, on occasion, dropping unexpected nuggets of wisdom.

Zuko stops eating. It’s not a conscious choice, not really. He ate every meal brought to him while he was recovering in bed, but once he healed enough to be responsible for finding his own food, the idea of it became impossible. He knows he needs to eat — he certainly feels _hungry_ — but eating unknown food, prepared by who knows how many hands, is too big of a risk.

Aang brings him dumplings, which Zuko will sometimes eat once Aang pops them in his mouth carelessly, performatively. When the hunger gets unbearable, he’ll go down to the kitchen and watch his chefs make him a plain jook from start to finish. Everyone in the kitchen is very nice — his head chef tells him he’s welcome anytime — but Zuko doesn’t really have time to be spending three hours a day in the kitchen, and besides, he knows the newer staff get nervous around him.

He’s thin, though. He’s too weak — mentally, physically — to protect Aang from the petty members of Zuko’s court who toss barbed comments Aang’s way since they aren’t allowed to be frustrated at their demotions from General to Councillor. He finds himself lightheaded at illogical times, dizzy at the sun’s peak and overwhelmed in the late afternoon heat. As the months go on, he can barely keep track of the goings-on in his meetings. He understands that there’s an investigation into his attempted murder but he can’t follow it; his days become a strange haze of malnutrition and the occasional sharp fear that his wrists are too bony, his cheeks too gaunt.

And then Officer Pizin brings him a suspect.

“Officer,” Zuko says, too quiet in his council room. All of the people who are still part of the military are now officers in his palace; no generals, no commanders, no captains. The hierarchies remain outside of the palace, largely because the only military forces outside of the palace are provincial militaries and their defense contingent, not exactly worth restructuring, but Zuko can’t abide by the idea of a general in his court.

“This scum admitted to your attempted murder, Lord Zuko,” Pizin sneers, tossing a young man onto the stone at Zuko’s feet, handcuffed and shackled. “Do you deny it?”

The kid — maybe Zuko’s age, maybe younger, maybe even a year or two older — laughs. “Deny trying to rid our nation of filth?” He spits on the ground. “I did what I had to do. I’m proud of it.”

“What’s your name?” Zuko asks, head spinning.

“San,” he says, that awful grin still on his face. “My name is San. Like you’d care to know, Fire Lord.”

“I do care to know,” Zuko says softly. “I’d like to know why you wanted me dead.”

San doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Zuko almost wonders if he’ll say anything at all. His shoulders fall, his grin cracks, and Zuko wonders— Zuko wonders. He tries again, gently. “Did someone hire you to do this, San?”

Immediately, San’s shoulders tense again. “I don’t need other people to tell me to do what’s right,” he hisses. “No one made me.”

But his eyes— his shoulders— Zuko squats, and leans in close. Out of the corner of his eye he spots his guards moving in close, worriedly, but they stop when it seems that San won’t do anything rash. He says, very carefully, “I don’t believe you.”

San looks panicked for a moment, and Zuko almost thinks— but then overzealous Officer Pizin wrenches San by the back of his shirt, throwing him onto the ground. “Disgusting,” he mutters. To Zuko, he says, “We should kill him. He’s a traitor, and a dangerous one.”

Zuko stands up. “I want him detained and questioned. I’m certain there’s more to this.”

Officer Pizin nods, and motions to two of Zuko’s guards to drag the oddly silent San out of the throne room. “I’ll find an answer for you, Fire Lord Zuko.”

Zuko inclines his head in respect. “Thank you, Officer Pizin.”

His breath catches in his throat as the majority of his guards leave. What could make a teenager so certain that death is the answer — and how could he have gotten access to Zuko’s food without inside help?

For the first time, he wonders if he brought this on himself.

* * *

Other than the assassination attempt, Zuko is only peripherally aware of the growing unrest. As far as his advisors report, the Fire Nation population is largely in favor of his rule. The growing middle class is buoyant, with enough capital to keep them afloat even in times of transition, and the peasants have been mostly anti-war from the start. The factories which have successfully transitioned to agricultural infrastructure and ore processing, and smaller industries like textiles and paper, are apparently relatively successful.

But there are still three abandoned factories dotted across the north of the Fire Nation island, and their fate is conspicuously absent from Zuko’s reports. The numbers come to him as positive statistics — 12 out of our 15 heavy industry factories have made successful transitions, 85% of municipal governors have pledged support for divestment from military — but the reality of those remaining 3 factories, those remaining 15% of municipal governors, is hidden in the whispers of kitchen staff and illicit literature wheatpasted on the capital’s brick walls.

On an unsanctioned evening walk — Zuko isn’t supposed to go anywhere without bodyguards, but it’s so stifling, and besides, the immediate area around the palace is so heavily patrolled anyway that he’s undoubtedly just as safe — he spots a poster.

JUST TRANSITION PLAN NOW!

THE NEW FIRE LORD’S POLICY IS PUTTING  
FIRE NATION CITIZENS OUT OF JOBS  
WITH NO ALTERNATIVES.

HUNDREDS HAVE STARVED TO DEATH  
IN THE NORTHERN PROVINCES.

WHY ARE WE STILL DYING UNDER OUR  
NEW “PEACEFUL” FIRE LORD?

He turns away quickly, before anyone else can see him looking at the poster. He’s not stupid, but he has been wilfully ignorant. 4 out of 5 heavy industry factories have transitioned. So what? What about the towns built up around those three remaining factories? Have they been completely abandoned? Zuko doesn’t know. He didn’t even think to ask.

He stalks back to the palace. Two women are conversing on a bench, most likely on a date. He catches the end of a question: “—about what’s happening in the north?” Zuko walks faster.

Night thoroughly spoiled, he throws himself onto his bed the moment he gets to his room. He remains awake for a long time.

* * *

“Do you ever sleep?” Aang waylays Zuko late one afternoon — maybe it’s closer to evening — during a break between meetings. Zuko has been meeting with advisors since sunrise, but he tries not to be irritated by the interruption.

“Of course I do,” he replies. Then, with a sigh, “Would you like to join me for lunch, Aang?”

“Yeah!” Aang hops onto an airball, still as spritely as ever, and Zuko stalks after him, feeling every inch the angry teenager he was when he was following Aang across continents. Aang swivels around to look at Zuko. “You coming?”

“Yes,” mutters Zuko. 

“Cool,” Aang says. He lurches forward, and then spins back again, his whole body tilted at an alarming angle. “Uh, where are we going?”

Zuko sighs again.

* * *

Once they hit their second tray of pastries, Zuko motions for a guard to rearrange his evening activities. He only had four meetings planned with advisors, none of them incredibly urgent, and namedropping the Avatar is still usually enough to get him out of his minor bureaucratic responsibilities.

Aang shoves two steamed buns into his mouth. “Wh’r ys’busy all’a t’mbrgh—”

“ _Aang_.”

Zuko watches Aang swallow the pastries. Great Agni, he thinks. “Why’re you so busy all the time?”

“I am the Fire Lord,” Zuko says. He takes a sesame ball and splits it, licking the black sesame paste off his fingers before biting into one of the halves. He hesitates for a moment, the way he does after every bite, waiting for something to go wrong. He tries not to let Aang notice. “It’s a demanding job.”

“Okay, yeah, but—” Aang bites into yet another bun. Zuko hopes the kitchen wasn’t planning on doing anything with them. “I mean, I haven’t seen you all week!”

“I thought you wanted to leave to go help with the irrigation project in the west.” Zuko doesn’t admit that it made him a little jealous, the idea of Aang floating through the quiet rice farms that break up the lush coastal rainforest, with Zuko trapped in his hulking palace.

Aang rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I wanted you to come with me! But then you were like, _ooh I’m the Fire Lord, nyehh_ and _Avatar Aang, I am very busy, I need to go tell my councillors how to do their jobs_ and _I’ve never heard of a farm before_.”

“I don’t sound like that.” And more importantly, Zuko wouldn’t have rejected an offer like that if he’d known it existed. How was he supposed to know that Aang was inviting him along, if he didn’t say it? “You said— you just said, ‘Zuko, I wanna go help with the irrigation project.’ How was I supposed to know I was invited?”

“Why would I have mentioned it if I didn’t want you to come? That’s so mean! Do you really think I’d just tell you I wanted a break without letting you come with me?”

Zuko balks in the face of Aang’s wide goatpuppy eyes. “Uh. No?”

Aang nods, satisfied. “Exactly.”

“Okay, well.” Zuko tears the other half of the sesame ball into quarters. “I can’t really afford to just take a week off.”

“What if you planned it? You could come with me next month!”

Zuko shrugs. “I can’t really… that’s not really my decision.” The sesame ball is turning to mush in his hands, black sesame seed paste and rice dough all over his fidgeting fingers. He can’t eat this.

Suddenly, a ribbon of water floats across the room from the kitchen taps. Aang cleans Zuko’s hands with it, which is the strangest and possibly most intimate thing anyone has ever done for Zuko. Zuko blinks up at him. “I’m worried that you’re working too hard,” Aang says, but Zuko’s still stuck on the water, the way Aang had so casually taken care of him.

“Uh huh,” Zuko says absentmindedly when it becomes clear Aang is waiting for a response.

Clearly, it’s not good enough. “The monks always said that I should always balance hard work and fun,” Aang says. “And, I mean… we are trying to restore harmony, Zuko.”

“Harmony can wait for when we have time to rest,” Zuko says bitterly. “Right now, I’m just trying to keep us from falling into a full tilt crisis.”

“Well, you dying from working too hard won’t bring anybody harmony,” Aang snaps.

“I _know_ that,” Zuko says. “That’s the only thing keeping me alive.” He means it in the sense that most of his people recognize his importance, that he has enough popular support to keep him relevant, that everyone knows his death will only cause further chaos. But Aang grips his wrist tight. “Aang–”

“What does that mean?” Aang’s eyes are wide. “Zuko…”

“Forget about it,” Zuko says. His wrist is sweating under Aang’s hand, which is rare for him, acclimated as he is to the heat. He worries that Aang will stick around out of worry, when he belongs anywhere else — at the irrigation project in the west, or the reconstruction projects at the Air Temples, or with Katara down at the South Pole. Zuko can’t afford to be a liability.

Even when he was the enemy, Aang always seemed too good for this world. Too pure. When he was younger, Zuko thought he was pathetic for it; thought the world would be better off without the Avatar pouring hope into it, trying to save a lost cause. Now, Zuko knows Aang’s future is the only thing that makes his work worthwhile. Zuko’s job is to stay out of his way.

Aang releases him after a long moment, sitting back in his chair. Looking down, he asks, “Tell me how you’re really feeling? Please?”

Zuko looks away. Strange, that he’s earned this vulnerability from the Avatar. Stranger still that he wants to return it. “I’m worried,” he says softly. “I’m worried that I’ll never be able to fix it.”

He doesn’t specify what it is, but Aang knows. They all know; every person in the world has a list a mile long of things the Fire Nation broke.

“Sometimes it hurts being here,” Aang replies, equally quiet. Zuko turns to look at him. “Because… because your people took mine away from me.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko says. As if anything Zuko says could ever be enough. “Aang, I’m sorry.”

“I know. I’m saying that you’re doing a good job, because it’s easier when I’m with you.” Zuko lets the full force of that hit him as Aang picks up a sesame ball, airbending it between his hands like it’s instinct. Zuko wonders if all airbenders are as casually gifted as Aang, if the spirit in Aang is common to all of the Air Nomads. He’ll never find out. “Being the Avatar is a lot of responsibility. It’s like being the Fire Lord, but for the whole world.”

Zuko nods. He understands that.

Aang puts the sesame ball down. Zuko watches him twist his fingers together. “I feel like I don’t know how to… be sad,” he says quietly. “I keep— I don’t know how to say it. I keep starting, and then stopping. Do you ever feel like that?”

Zuko, who has shied away from more memories than he can think of, understands Aang perfectly. “It’s hard to feel it,” he says, as though he has any right to compare his grief to Aang’s. Still. Maybe he can offer something useful. “What would make it easier?”

Aang smiles. “Will you meditate with me? For them?”

Zuko’s breath catches. As if— as if he has the right. The audacity of it, to mourn for the people his grandfather killed… but maybe it’s what he should do. The kind of dare he should take. “Yes,” he says, or tries to say, his voice caught. He clears his throat. Too loudly, he tries again, “Yes.”

“Thanks, Zuko,” Aang says, and then hops to his feet. “Do you wanna go right now?”

Zuko has an insurmountable pile of papers on his desk which he meant to review tonight, but the bureaucracy will always be there and this, he thinks. This is worth falling behind. “Yeah. We can go anywhere you want.”

“I wanna go to the roof.”

Zuko stands up. “Let’s go.”

Aang spends most of their walk up pointing out interesting carvings on the walls. “What’s that one, Zuko?” he asks about twenty times, Zuko trying to rack his brain for the most ridiculous explanations he can think of. His most inspired attempt might have been his claim that a giant boar-lion in a ceiling corner represented the power of love.

Once they make it to the roof, though, the mood dampens. “I’m gonna sit,” Aang blurts out anxiously, and Zuko nods.

Aang puts the soles of his feet together, sets his knuckles against each other. Zuko tries to copy Aang, before settling into his own familiar meditative pose, eyes fixed just above the setting sun. Aang is antsy, at first, but every time he opens his eyes, he sees Zuko next to him and seems to settle down.

When the sun is nothing but a thin line of fire across the horizon, the sky winding down from its saturated pinks to the color of the northern ocean, Zuko speaks. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Aang nods, his eyes still closed. After a deep breath in, Aang says, “I miss them a lot.”

Zuko closes his eyes, too, the light dancing behind his eyelids. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

A beat passes, then two. Aang says, “I didn’t know anybody who died, personally, before. But I heard that when airbenders… when we mourn someone, we’re supposed to tell stories about them.” His voice wavers, and Zuko wants, desperately, to erase that weakness from his voice, to pull him into a hug and ply him with snacks, but maybe this is the way it’s supposed to happen. Whispering, Aang adds, “We’re supposed to remember their spirit, not— not their body. Because they’re still here.”

Zuko cracks his eyes open. The sun has set completely, the sky sinking into an inky blackness, stars emerging one by one. Next to him, Aang is shivering. A tear slips from one of his eyes. “They’re still here,” Aang whispers, voice catching. “They’re still—”

“Aang—”

Zuko feels helpless as Aang’s hands slip out of their pose. He buries his face in his palms. “I miss them so much,” Aang cries, voice muffled by his hands, his tiny shoulders shaking. “I ran away. I ran away because I was angry and scared and then I never saw any of them again—” His breath hitches into sobs, brutal things that Zuko wants to heal.

He’s had his fair share of crying fits, too, though, and Zuko knows the best way out is through. “Do you want a hug?” Zuko asks awkwardly.

“Uh huh,” Aang nods, swiping his forearm over his face, and Zuko pulls him halfway into his lap, Aang’s head on his chest. His arms are wrapped tight around Zuko’s back. Every time, Zuko is astonished at how small Aang is. He’ll grow, undoubtedly, already broader and taller than he was when Zuko first met him, but he’s not an adult yet.

They stay like that for a long time, long enough that Zuko starts to feel sore from sitting in one position for so long. Long enough that Aang’s sobs quiet into gentle tears. “Do you want to tell stories about them?”

“Yeah,” Aang says, burying his face in Zuko’s shoulder. He laughs. “I’ve told you about Gyatso, right?”

“A little bit,” Zuko says. He grips Aang tight. “Tell me more.”

So Aang does tell him. He tells him about Gyatso teaching him to launch cake at the other elder monks. He tells him about Gyatso playing pai sho with him, which makes Zuko close his eyes and think, again, of how lucky he is to have Uncle. He tells him about Gyatso standing up for him when the other monks wanted to force Aang into training.

“That’s how I know about balance,” Aang says. “That’s why I care so much when you work too hard. Because Gyatso taught me.”

“You were lucky to have him, and he was lucky to have you.”

“Yeah.” Aang’s breath hiccups into another cry. “And that’s just him. There were so many—” His voice cracks, and Zuko breathes in. He wonders how it could be that Zuko still has his people, his life, when Aang has never done anything to deserve this grief. “Zuko. Zuko, there were kids. _Babies_.” He’s shaking violently in Zuko’s arms. “They used to call me _kuya_. That means older brother. Kuya Aang. All the little— we used to play, play airball— little _kids_ —”

“Aang,” Zuko whispers, horrified. He wonders what Sozin’s army did when they set foot in those temples, older monks teaching children how to play practical jokes on each other, teenagers studying in libraries. Whether they hesitated, for even a moment. Whether that would have made it worse or better, what they did afterwards.

“They’re still here,” Aang whispers fiercely.

“Yes,” Zuko says. He sees them in Aang. “They’re here with you.”

Aang nods. After a second, he disentangles himself from Zuko.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Zuko says gravely, but inadequately. No words can encompass such a grief. “I’m sorry my people took them away from you.”

Aang grips Zuko’s hand. “I’m sorry you never got to meet them,” he replies.

The stars continue, as they always do. Zuko is tempted to rail against them for this injustice, but he’s shouted profanities at the sky before. Heaven rarely listens.

* * *

“Councillor Jaikang,” Zuko says, voice hard. “I have a question about our transition numbers.”

“Yes, Fire Lord?” Jaikang is a skilled manager of even more skilled researchers. Unlike the vast majority of military generals whose only skills seem to be rousing angry people into violence, Jaikang will likely prove useful as the process of demilitarization continues. And yet, Zuko reminds himself, that doesn’t mean he can trust her.

“I want to know more about the remaining three weapons factories. Do we know about their conditions?”

“Ah.” Jaikang rallies quickly, though. “Yes. The northeastern factory, Amado-Guzen, is still operational, but the other two in the north — Nizhao and Ilpa-Jamas — have been mostly abandoned. Some people on my team have reported that there are some transient communities now living on the highway near those last two. The major problem we’re hearing about is a series of violent protests throughout the neighboring towns, burning houses and so on.”

Zuko feels like a child next to these people. “Transient communities,” he repeats. “And how can we connect our people to support services?”

The people around his council room stare back blankly. Zuko waits.

“Fire Lord,” one of them finally starts. Councillor Kenai. “I’m afraid— we simply don’t have the resources. There aren’t any services for them, other than the union pensions.”

Zuko breathes in. “We don’t have the resources,” he says, repeating again, feeling more and more humiliated by the second. And yet, angry — righteously so. “Councillor Kenai. What is your monthly allotment for housing and food?”

Councillor Kenai swallows. “Two— two hundred gold coins. Sir.”

“Yes.” Zuko stares straight ahead, past the council table. All he can think about is Nia’s letter. _What legacy will you leave behind, Fire Lord Zuko?_ “And how much do these people need, in order to be housed and fed every month? Councillor Jaikang? Do you have an assessment?”

“It depends on the regions we’re talking about, Fire Lord.” Councillor Jaikang looks through her papers. “The factory town of Amado-Guzen has an average cost of living of about fifty gold coins per month, and the regions where Nizhao and Ilpa-Jamas were located have costs of living of about ten and thirty gold coins monthly, respectively.”

“I see.” Zuko nods. “And all of our councillors are receiving two hundred gold coins per month for their housing and food allotments.”

“And all upper-level palace staff, Fire Lord,” Jaikang adds promptly.

“Yes.” Zuko sighs. “Okay. What are our options?”

“The provincial militia has already secured one town,” Jaikang says. “I’m certain that with extra reinforcements, we can reduce the violence and stop the spread of dissent.”

Zuko pauses. “Councillor. I’m not asking about the protests.”

Her brow furrows. “I… see. I don’t— ah, we don’t have a plan in place, for, um, welfare. If that’s what you’re referring to, sir.”

“Yes. It is.”

“Yes, I—” She nervously flips through her papers. “We have a veterans’ aid housing complex in the area? It’s full, but we could— if we put people two to a room, we could double the capacity—”

“Can we build new houses?” Zuko’s suggestion is met with shock. He wonders if he’s missing something completely obvious. “The people need work. We could subsidize a housing project, stimulate the northern economy. Have we heard from the factory unions beyond their pension plans?”

In the space after his question, a distant roar seems to start. No one else reacts; Zuko keeps his eyes forward, hearing the rushing crescendo in his ears, wondering if this is another consequence of his near-death. As the sound reaches its peak — a great torrent of water, a dragon’s scales tinkling, a howling tornado, ten thousand mountains crumbling — there’s a face in the doorway, a pale-faced spirit—

“They want defense contracts.” Officer Pizin’s voice from across the room cuts through the sudden silence. The spirit is gone. Zuko hadn’t even noticed Pizin was in this meeting. “Please excuse me,” he continues, much more subdued, “I simply— my family is from the north, you see. I’m very passionate.”

“I understand completely,” Zuko says. He exhales, hands shaking. “But we… can’t. There’s no need for more weapons. We don’t _need_ more warships. We need building supplies and equipment, agricultural infrastructure, and I think it’s enough to pull our people out of this crisis.”

Pizin opens his mouth, and then closes it. Zuko waits, but he doesn’t continue. The spirit, if that’s what it was, doesn’t appear again.

“Invite representatives from the north to visit us here in the palace,” Zuko says into the awkward silence. He looks at each of his council members’ faces closely; no one else has seen what he’s seen, heard what he’s heard. Perhaps the vision was just a construction of his exhausted mind, nothing to worry about. “They understand the situation of their people. They’ll have a fresh perspective and will give us a path forward.”

“Okay,” Councillor Kenai says, clearly bored of the discussion. “Let’s send the invitation. I can write it, if you want.”

“I’ll write it,” Zuko says, feeling oddly protective. “I want them to know that the Fire Lord is personally invested in the welfare of their people.”

“Fire Lord Zuko,” Jaikang meekly interrupts. “If I may… the north has always been poorer than the rest of the country. It’s simply the way things have been. Expending significant resources into an area that has always been problematic is risky, if it detracts from the rest of our recovery project.”

Zuko shakes his head. “You don’t understand,” he says, tiredness loosening his tongue. The rushing returns to his ears, quieter now. “None of you understand. The welfare of every single person in this nation — every child, every grandmother — is in our hands. Don’t you see? It is our _duty_ to hold up the people of the north, just as they have held up the rest of our nation all this time.” He turns sharp eyes on Jaikang. “Unless, of course, you think the contribution of the northern mines — our _only_ iron mines — and the people who work in them to our country is negligible.”

Jaikang bows her head. “Forgive me, Fire Lord Zuko. I spoke out of turn.”

“You spoke the way my father would have wanted you to speak.” That makes all of them pay attention. “I want it to be clear that I am not Ozai, and I am not his heir. I am Fire Lord Zuko, the first Fire Lord of the new era. An era of justice. A time we can look upon with honor.”

Into the heavy silence that follows, Pizin says, “I’d like to deliver your message to the north personally.”

“Please do,” Zuko says. “You know the north well. Thank you again, Officer Pizin.”

The meeting shuffles onto its next subject, but Zuko keeps his eyes on the door. No more visions come for the rest of the night.

* * *

He starts with the letter to the union representatives in the north, before moving on to reading the letters he’s received with today’s postal delivery.

The first letter in Zuko’s stack is a short note from Heda, the commander of his palace guards, informing him that San died in prison. _The investigation has concluded that the cause of death is suicide_.

Zuko stares blankly at the note in his hand for a long moment. He wonders if it was San’s conviction or his failure that pushed him to die. He wonders if it would have been possible to stop this death; perhaps hypocritically, he wonders where the justice is in Ozai and Azula living on, while San’s body rots in an unmarked grave.

Uncle’s letter is next.

 _Dear nephew,_ it starts, and Zuko’s eyes well up. He can hear the words in Uncle’s voice, clear as day.

_To answer your question: business at the Jasmine Dragon is really booming! You know, my customers often complain that my service is quite slow… it would be much easier to manage my shop if I had another set of hands every so often…_

_When you last wrote to me, you told me that Aang and Katara were going to visit the Fire Nation. Have they arrived? How are they? You also mentioned that Sokka would be leaving you — he has not come to visit me yet, but tell him I am expecting his company if he ever comes to Ba Sing Se! The same goes for the Avatar and any of your other friends. It is so good to see that you have made such lasting and powerful friendships, my nephew._

_Many years ago, I abandoned the throne due to my grief. There have been many consequences for my actions, and many teachings as well. This time, I have abandoned the throne in gladness. I am happy to leave the throne in your capable hands — or maybe to leave it under your capable butt!_

_I know you are frowning, Zuko; let an old man have his jokes._

_The important thing is that you must recognize when you are tired, or frightened, or angry. You must listen to your gentle heart, Zuko — it will keep you true and honest, far more than your father ever was. You must trust your friends to hold you up in times of weakness, for it is our relationships that give us strength. The war had many causes, but it continued because a weak man left the throne for an even weaker man to protect. Only you and your friends were strong enough to end it._

_I hope you will visit me soon, nephew, even if you cannot stay long enough to help me at my tea shop. I am, as always, so proud of the man you are becoming._

_— Uncle_

Zuko bites down on his knuckle as tears, embarrassingly, stream down his face. He _misses_ him. But the stack of papers on his desk is as good an indicator as any that Zuko can’t afford to ditch the palace to hang out at the Jasmine Dragon, not anytime soon.

He could write to Uncle about the poison. Uncle asked him to, even: _You must trust your friends to hold you up in times of weakness_. It must be doubly true for family. But Zuko knows what would happen: Uncle Iroh would abandon his tea shop to come visit, and he would see what a mess Zuko has made of things, and Zuko would crumble under the weight of his shame, made even worse by Uncle’s inevitable offer of help.

 _I am happy to stay for longer,_ Uncle would say, a smile on his face, as though he wanted to be shackled to Zuko for another five years. His tea shop project would slowly deteriorate until, finally, he’d pull the plug — or, he’d return to it, with a bitter resentment at losing another few years of his precious life to Zuko’s drama.

Zuko puts pen to paper. He knows he’ll regret it, as he always does when he ignores Uncle’s advice, but he writes an easy, casual letter. _Dear Uncle, The situation here is the same as it was when I last wrote…_

* * *

The setting sun reminds Zuko of that day, almost two months ago now, when the poison almost killed him. Through the large bay windows, the sky is like a beautiful painting rendered in rich oils. Soon, the stars will overtake the sun.

Zuko only visits Azula at night.

Across from him, Azula is sitting cross legged on her floor pillow. She tilts her head consideringly at Zuko as he pours tea for them both. The low table is buffed to a shine, reflecting Azula’s face in the deep red of the bloodwood surface.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” she asks, when Zuko slides a cup over to her.

It’s the same question she asked when he last visited her, four months ago. He should spend more time with her, but he thinks that about all of his responsibilities. He hates himself for thinking of her as a burden. “No,” he says. “No, I don’t.”

“I bet you do. I bet you wish you’d killed me at our Agni Kai.” She says it matter-of-factly, but Zuko is certain she’s hurt by the idea of it.

Zuko doesn’t know how to say that in the end, she made the only decisions she could. That what she did was her right, maybe, if at odds with what justice demanded. That stopping her that day doesn’t mean he didn’t love her. Doesn’t love her now.

He shakes his head and drinks his tea. Azula hasn’t touched hers.

“Why have you come to visit me? Last time you came, you just stood in the doorway. You never sit with me.” She grins. “Are you scared?”

 _Yes_ , Zuko wants to say. Azula still makes fear and shame prickle at the back of his neck, most of it well-deserved and some of it— some of it just the memory of his father’s mind games, his grandfather’s derision. That’s not something he can talk about, not yet. “I wanted to ask you something,” he says instead.

Azula grins. “Oh, yes. You always need something from me, don’t you, Zuko?”

“I want to know how you feel.” Zuko’s hands are trembling. He presses them flat against his thighs. “Really. I want to know if you’re happy. If the way things turned out…” That’s maybe too far. He starts again: “If you can find a way to forgive me for leaving you here. If you hate me for it.”

“This room is pretty nice,” Azula admits. “I don’t hate you for leaving me here.”

“I meant—” Zuko brushes his hair out of his eyes with a nervous flick of his wrist. “I meant, before. When we were kids.” He never thought to ask her to come with him when he was banished. She would’ve said no, but he should’ve asked.

“Zuko,” Azula sighs, pityingly. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck with a traitor like you.”

He nods. Yes. That’s true enough. “Do you still think I’m a traitor?” The question slips out without his permission, but now he wants to know. Azula has always been the more politically-minded of the two of them. If she had a clearer head — or, maybe, a stronger heart, since her intellect has never been the problem — he’d want her as his advisor.

“Not now. Now the rules have changed. You changed them, Zuzu.” Azula looks almost kind, then, almost pleased. In a strangely lucid tone, she adds, “I don’t think _I’ll_ ever be happy, so I’m glad you found a way to do it.”

“I want you to be.” Zuko wonders if— perhaps the room, perhaps the guards, maybe he should’ve, they could’ve picked an island, where she could have more freedom— “Azula, what can I do?”

“It’s not this place,” she says as if she’s read Zuko’s mind. “It’s me.” Her grin comes back, then, her voice hardening. “You better get out before I go rabid again, Zuko. I could do anything. I’m _crazy_.”

“You’re not,” Zuko says. “But I’ll go if you want me to.”

“I do want you to go, but first I want to know something.” Azula finally takes a sip of her tea. It’s cold, now. It’s like she didn’t even notice it was there. “Why did you come, Zuko? Surely not just to ask if I’m _happy_.”

He knows the tone of her voice. It’s the one that tells him he’s pathetic, an embarrassment to their line. Degradation or begrudging pride are perhaps the only ways she knows how to tell him she cares. It’s the only way their father ever showed them. _I’m an adult now_ , he tells himself. _I shouldn’t let it get to me_.

“I spent some time with Aang, learning about the Air Nomads,” Zuko says. Azula snorts, but he ignores her. “I… grieved. For the fact that we could never meet his people.”

Azula cackles, loud and brutal. “Aw, that’s adorable! So sad about your little boyfriend. So cute.”

“It made me think of the things we grew up hearing,” Zuko continues, ears burning with humiliation at Azula’s reaction. If she knew about Sokka— he shakes his head to clear it. “It made me think of the lies you were told. That we were both told.”

“But you were smart enough to see through them, and I wasn’t, is that it, Zuko?” Azula puts her hands on the table, leans forward, dangerous. “Is that what you came here to say?”

“It took me four years of exile from the Fire Nation to realize that our propaganda was lies, Azula. You could’ve done it in two.” It doesn’t cost Zuko anything to acknowledge that. “I came here to say that you deserved better.”

“Huh.” Azula retreats back into her calm pose, regal even on the floor. Always the most commanding presence in the room. “I want you to leave now.”

“Yes. Okay.” Zuko stands up and bows, deeply. He won’t throw himself on the floor ever again, not for anyone, but he can give Azula this last respect. “Thank you for spending time with me, sister,” he says softly, facing the floor. 

“Thanks for the tea,” she throws out casually, shooing him away, a frown on her face.

Zuko smiles as he turns away to leave. She’s never thanked him before.

* * *

_Dear Zuko,_

_Not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s some conflict up in the Northern Water Tribe over accepting your reparation funds — people are probably not too hot on taking Fire Nation money. The young people are on your side, though, which I think is good._

_No other updates. Would be nice to see you sometime, but we’re pretty busy down here with the reconstruction effort, so not sure when I might be able to leave._

_That’s all I have for now. Until next time,_

_Sokka_

Zuko turns the letter over, desperate for something else, anything else. A suggested timeline for a meetup, maybe, or a request for Zuko to come down to the Water Tribe instead of Sokka coming up to the Fire Nation. It’s so— the letter’s so plain. He wonders if it’s a code, or if this is an official letter which Sokka will follow up with a personal note, but he has to accept the truth.

This _is_ the personal note. This is what Sokka thinks Zuko wants to know — or, this is what Sokka wants to tell Zuko. Maybe he’d imagined it, all those months ago, the friendship that managed to persist through Zuko’s anxiety. He’s so— Zuko breathes in sharply through his nose, trying to avoid burning himself in his pathetic, embarrassing, childish anger. He’s so _stupid_. To think that Sokka might’ve felt—

Zuko knows what he looks like. He prides himself on his stature, his musculature — although now he’s disturbingly skinny, he knows, only just starting to eat again, but _before_ — and he knows he cuts a sharp figure in his robes. He knows that the scar adds a layer of intimidation, now that his shame has been publicly overturned. The official portrait is striking and beautiful.

He knows, too, that pictures are rarely the same close up.

The skin around his eye gets dry and crusty, flaking away in disgusting tissue-thin scraps of skin. It’s red, mostly, but parts of his skin are also an off-putting translucent white. His whole face looks painful, and upsetting, and nauseating. The repulsive brand on his skin is useful in negotiations with councillors thirty years older than him, but he can’t imagine that Sokka had an easy time touching it, kissing around it, looking at it.

And all of that — the burn and the profound humiliation behind it — is nothing compared to Zuko’s own inability to hold down a decent relationship. He’s abrasive and clingy by turns, and the way he speaks is awkward and mostly reflects the stilted half-assed socialization of his childhood. Sokka undoubtedly hears Ozai’s cruel proclamations in Zuko’s voice, sees Azulon’s pettiness in Zuko’s complaints about his council members. Zuko sees them in himself. He sees the worst of his people in the mirror every day.

And yet— and yet. Zuko hoped. He thought, it wouldn’t be too much to ask, would it, and put his hands on Sokka, and leaned on Sokka during the first months of his reign, and let Sokka shoulder the burden of a war nation’s reconstruction at the expense of his own people.

What would have happened if Sokka had been here when San poisoned him? Sokka might have stayed. Zuko crumples the letter in his hand.

Something is going wrong. Something is going wrong in his country, to make a young man desperate enough to slip poison into the Fire Lord’s food. Zuko has done something wrong, his people are itching for conflict, and here he is, wondering if maybe being bedridden and malnourished might have kept Sokka around for longer. Disgusted, he lights the letter on fire, and wonders if Sokka had the right idea, leaving him behind.

* * *

Zuko visits the turtleducks one night. They’re usually asleep around this time; he just likes seeing them at peace, listening to the gentle chittering of night creatures as the rest of the world slumbers. He thinks of Aang, cross-legged on the palace roof, the same air in his body as in Zuko’s.

A small gopher-mole sticks its head out of the ground next to Zuko. “You’re not supposed to be here,” Zuko teases, sticking a finger out in case the little guy wants to be pet. Then he frowns. “You’re really not supposed to be here. Aren’t you guys from the Earth Kingdom?” He’s pretty sure no one from the palace has decided to take on the project of introducing mainland species into the palace grounds.

As he looks, the gopher-mole seems to waver in and out of existence. He blinks, and the gopher-mole is a snake, but furry, mammalian — if he looks closely, or from the wrong angle, maybe it’s still a gopher-mole. He pulls his hand back. “Who are you?” he whispers.

The gopher-mole-snake slips back into the ground. Zuko examines the ground, shaken. He runs his hand over the soil; there’s no hole left behind. As if it was never there.

He turns back to the turtleduck pond. Two little baby turtleducks have come out to swim, paddling their tiny feet through the pondwater. Zuko breathes out, a small lick of flame escaping along with his air. He watches, relaxing slowly as they turn, circling and circling around each other, small ripples in the water framing the moon’s reflection. In perfect balance.

Zuko puts his hand in the water, unthinkingly, as if compelled. He’s never been afraid of water, but never particularly attracted to it, either. Somehow, he’s not surprised to see a large black koi fish swim up to the surface, nipping gently at his fingertips before it returns to where it came from. He looks up, and sees another large white fish breach the surface.

As he walks back to his bedroom, the moon never leaves him to shadow, not once.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features nonsensical pining-motivated actions, paranoia, and is the reason for the "homophobia" tag. =)

Heda comes to his room early one morning before a council meeting. Zuko’s still in bed, half-awake as Heda closes the door behind her. “Wh—”

“Fire Lord,” she says, voice low and fervent. “There’s something you need to know.”

“Heda,” Zuko rasps out, stumbling out of bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Officer Pizin hired San to kill you.”

Zuko swallows, stands up straight. “Are you sure?”

“I suspected when San died, because Pizin was assigned to his cell that night, but I didn’t want to accuse an officer without evidence,” she says. “I assigned one of your guards to investigate. San’s family received a sum of nine hundred gold coins the day before you were poisoned, and their description of the man who gave it to them matched Pizin exactly.”

Her mouth twists. “I think he realized it was over, when we confronted him. He—” She frowns. “Killed himself. Put a sword through his own stomach before any of us could get to him.”

Zuko sets his hand against his bedframe for support, deeply disturbed. Another death. He wonders if San’s family needed the money — if San had even believed in Pizin’s ideology, if a new Fire Lord had made any real difference in his life or if he was just desperate for gold — and Pizin, dead by his own hand.

He exhales. “Investigate Pizin’s things, his contacts. Tell me what you find.”

Heda nods sharply. She turns to leave, and Zuko says, “Wait.”

“Yes, Fire Lord Zuko?”

Zuko breathes. In, out. Today will be a shitty day, he knows, no meditation, no time alone with the sun. But still. “Thank you for protecting me.”

She’s still for a moment, and then smiles. “Thank you for bringing us out of war.”

Zuko watches the sky brighten as Heda leaves behind him.

* * *

The most important thing that comes out of the Pizin investigation are two handwritten invitations from Zuko, intended for the northern people’s organizations, deep inside a desk drawer.

“They were never delivered,” Zuko realizes, as a wash of cold sweeps over him. Months, and the invitations were never delivered. “We need— there’s an ambassadorial dinner coming up in a month. Send the invitations to them. Explain…” He closes his eyes, frustrated with the guileless indifference of his secretary. “Please add a note, stating that a saboteur deliberately destroyed our first messages to them. You must be very clear that they are welcome, and that the Fire Lord would personally like to accommodate them as honored guests.”

His secretary bows quickly. “Yes, Fire Lord Zuko.”

* * *

Like a tired, snuffling horse, the machine of superprofit grinds to a slow friction in a select few Earth Kingdom plantations and Fire Nation estates.

The people of the Fire Nation are no longer fighting. They have returned home in wounded, angry droves, wondering how far their military salaries will take them now that war is no longer the national industry. They take up jobs at newly transitioning factories, building steel beams and digging ditches, and their products are sold to Fire Nation buyers.

The first contract for Earth Kingdom weapons expires without renewal, because no Fire Nation general will renew it. A Fire Nation landlord finds himself out-competed by the newly returned soldiers who have become craftspeople and cooperative farmworkers. The network of Fire Nation industrialists and their allies in the Earth Kingdom begins to crumble in the face of the Fire Nation’s turn inward.

The group of northern people’s alliances would be powerful allies in a war to take back power from the Fire Lord, but they want more control over their production, not less. The hyperactive globalization that pushed conglomerates forward, that paid for one Fire noble’s island and an Earth businessman’s yacht, can only be regained with a return to war, to the conflict that drives prices up and labor costs down. It's easy to stir up Ozai’s old fanatics who burned children in conquered territories for fun, to tell them this new Fire Lord is a coward who’s cheated them out of their hard-earned spoils. The zealots are willing to go to war to bring the landlord and industrialist numbers back up. Senseless, maybe, but more importantly: profitable.

A faceless man in a well-protected cottage in the north of the Earth Kingdom sends a letter to a woman in Ba Sing Se. She sends a note along with four hundred gold coins to a man in Crescent Island, who takes a nondescript fishing boat to the Fire Nation capital, and holds a meeting on the top floor of a bar with a group of people who once swore loyalty to Fire Lord Ozai, and have never renounced their oath.

* * *

The ambassadorial dinner is a major political event. Toph and Aang will be there, and so will Sokka. More importantly, however, it is the first time representatives from all four nations will come together to discuss issues of international importance, such as their respective booming populations, the need for trade regulations, and the growing healthcare crisis in the Fire Nation and its matching poverty crisis in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko has taken the preparations very seriously.

But. Sokka has _earrings_ now.

“Zuko!” Sokka calls, jogging up the steps to the palace. Zuko hadn’t planned to be outside at the same time as Sokka’s arrival, but it’s a happy coincidence. He has only a second to take in Sokka’s new look — muscles, new braids, and, Zuko’s eyes glaze over, his _piercings_ — before he’s wrapped up in an armadillo-bear hug that makes him forget all about the dinner tonight.

Zuko’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be practicing his speech or planning agendas for the meetings over the next few days, but he buries his face in Sokka’s shoulder, gripping him tight. “It’s good to see you,” he says, muffled into Sokka’s shirt. Eventually, when Sokka’s arms start to falter and Zuko becomes cognizant of the outside world again, he steps back, but keeps his hands on Sokka. “Wow. Look at you.” And then, like an uninhibited circus monkey, he can’t stop himself from adding, “You— piercings!”

Eloquent, Zuko.

Sokka breaks into a full-belly laugh. “Yeah, you got it,” he says. He tucks his braids behind his ears to show off the multitude of polished wooden studs and rings through the cartilage of both ears, the white tusk of a small rat-walrus hanging from his right lobe. “What do you think?”

Zuko blinks. His eyes flit between the stubble lining Sokka’s jaw and the series of piercings. The line of Sokka’s cheekbone, his mouth. “Looks, uh, good,” he eventually gets out, finally meeting Sokka’s eyes. “Very… cool.”

“Sweet,” Sokka says, clapping Zuko on the shoulder. He hoists his travel bag up onto his shoulders and asks, “So, my usual room?”

“Right this way,” Zuko says, sweeping his hand out like he’s a servant, and leads Sokka back to the room that Zuko hasn’t had the heart to let anyone else use in the months since Sokka left.

* * *

Zuko spots Sokka again later that afternoon, during one of the few times when he has a spare couple of hours. He’s on his way to the kitchen to try to hunt down some food if he can stomach it, but Sokka exiting the training room is too much of a lure for Zuko to keep moving.

“Sokka,” Zuko calls, and Sokka turns around. “You, uh. Busy?”

“Nah, just finished.” Sokka smiles. “I’ve still got some left in me, though. You wanna practice?” Sokka hefts up one of the practice swords he must have swiped from the training room behind him, and Zuko nods.

He’s missed him. And sure, it might be a way for him to hide from the demands of being the Fire Lord, but at least practicing self-defense with Sokka will get the approval of Heda, who agonizes over hiring enough guards to keep him safe without hiring so generously that another assassin could slip through the cracks.

It doesn’t take long for Zuko to realize that Sokka is still in his element as a fighter, even coming off a full workout. He doesn’t sweat much, but his heaving chest is enough to bring Zuko to distraction.

“Are you even paying attention?” Sokka teases, pushing forward as Zuko defends himself with his blunted practice dao blades.

Zuko comes back with a swipe to his stomach which Sokka narrowly dodges. “I could defeat you in my sleep,” he huffs, blowing hair out of his eyes as he slashes forward. Sokka parries at the last moment, sword scraping against Zuko’s, but it’s not enough. Zuko presses on until his swords are crossed, framing Sokka’s throat.

“Okay,” Sokka yields, dropping his sword. His chin tips up as he blows out a heavy breath. “Wow. Good fight.”

“Yeah,” Zuko replies, voice hoarse, bringing down his blades. “You looked— good.” Shit. Idiot. Uh. “Skilled. I mean.”

“You think so?” Sokka grins. Smoothly, he adds, “Glad you liked.”

“Y— yes,” Zuko stutters, taken off guard. He adjusts his grip and takes a step back, trying to clear his head. “Again?”

Sokka drops into a defensive stance in response. Through the sweat, Zuko feels exhilarated; he is finally — for once — in harmony with his body. “You put up a good fight, but I’m still gonna beat your ass,” Sokka heckles.

“I’d like to see you try,” Zuko retorts, and tries not to let on how much he really would like that.

In the end, Zuko gets his wish. Either his sweat or his forgotten hunger gets to be too much, but whatever it is, Zuko’s grip on his dao falters, forcing him to take a second he can’t afford to slide his hands up the hilt — a moment Sokka takes advantage of by stepping forward to rest his sword against Zuko’s side, like a theatrical illustration of a real stabbing.

“I win,” Sokka says softly. He retracts his blade. Zuko’s arms are still at his sides, the point of his dao tripping against the ground, completely open to Sokka’s attack. “One more time?”

“How long are you here this time?” Zuko asks instead. He watches the blow hit its mark, Sokka’s mouth twitching into a frown as he steps back. Desperate to save this, Zuko tries, “Hey. I was just asking.” It’s not an apology, exactly, but Zuko’s practice with those tends to be on an international scale.

Sokka doesn’t bother to ask Zuko to clarify his question. “I’m only in the capital for the dinner tonight,” Sokka says, eyes cast downwards, but at least he stops moving away. “I’m supposed to leave for the Earth Kingdom tomorrow morning, negotiate for some of their engineers to help us build something on the scale of the Northern Water Tribe.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Zuko repeats. A sharp ache starts to spread in his chest. “Okay. Yeah.”

“I was supposed to get here earlier,” Sokka says, as though he owes Zuko an excuse. As though he owes Zuko anything. “Things at home are just— there’s a lot to do, to try to rebuild—”

“Sokka, I know,” Zuko interrupts, because he thinks he might lose it if Sokka starts to list out the damage the Fire Nation has wrought upon his people. “It’s fine.”

“I wanted to see more of you,” Sokka says suddenly, dropping his sword to grip Zuko’s shoulders. “Seriously. I wanted to.”

Zuko steps out of his grasp and turns to put the practice dao blades back on the wall. “I’m not angry, Sokka,” he tries to clarify, ignoring the way it must look, for him to turn his back on Sokka as he says it. “You don’t have to come here to entertain me.”

“That’s not what I think I’m here for,” Sokka says, and follows Zuko to put his own sword away. “Look at me.”

Zuko turns to him, and Sokka cups his face. “I’m here for you,” he says, holding on when Zuko tries to turn away. His hand is hot, palm edging close — too close, maybe — to Zuko’s scar. If he were a firebender, Zuko would have killed him by now. As it is, Zuko just feels helpless. “I wanted to see you. This is where I want to be.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Zuko spits, and shoulders past Sokka. Relishing in the smoldering, cruel feeling curled in his stomach — a feeling he’s not allowed to have when he’s talking to his council members, to the people who actually deserve his anger — he says, “I’ll see you at the dinner tonight, Ambassador.”

He stalks out of the training room without waiting for a reply.

* * *

Zuko is already seated at a table with Aang and Toph when Sokka arrives at the ambassadorial dinner. He’s been disheartened to see that no one from the northern unions has arrived, but Toph had shown up a few hours earlier, wrecked his stairs to make it to his council room without lifting a toe, which is enough to mollify Zuko for tonight.

He looks up to see Sokka awkwardly looking away, scanning the room as if he might sit anywhere other than with Aang and Toph, and Zuko is confused for a brief second before he remembers that he’d blatantly insulted Sokka to his face that afternoon.

“I should go mingle,” Zuko says quietly, pushing his chair back. The sound of his chair on the ground draws Sokka’s eye, and Zuko stands up hurriedly. “I’ll— the ambassadors. I should say hello.”

“You’re going already?” Toph asks, still shoveling food in her mouth. “You sound stressed.” And then, long-suffering, she asks, “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Zuko chokes out, and steps away from the table before Toph can call him out on his lie. He ignores Aang’s _Huh?_ and walks over to the group of Earth Kingdom ambassadors huddled around a table. He has no idea what level of government they are — the Earth Kingdom seems to have an infinite number of stratified bureaucracies — but he asks about how they’re liking the food and lets them yammer on about the coastal trading market, the subtle differences between their writing systems, and a number of other things that he’s not sure he’s qualified or interested enough to comment on.

Once enough time has passed, Zuko looks back over his shoulder. Sokka is sitting in Zuko’s empty chair, laughing heartily with Aang and Toph. He looks up and catches Zuko’s eye, but Zuko looks away before he can see Sokka’s smile inevitably turn into a grimace.

The conversation with the Earth Kingdom representatives turns tense when one of them says, “I’d be interested to know if there will be any discussion of repatriating Earth Kingdom artefacts over the next few days.” The others swallow, and one of them laughs nervously, as Zuko tunes back in.

“It’s an important topic,” he says diplomatically. “I’ll be certain to add it to our agenda.”

That seems to satisfy most of them, who hastily direct the conversation back to harmless discussions of cultural differences and unfamiliar Fire Nation weather. The one who’d spoken, though — Zuko’s sure his name starts with an N. Neshi? Nashu? — stays quiet.

“I’m sure the Fire Nation has a number of statistical surveys on the topic,” Neshi-or-Nashu says, in response to one of the other bureaucrat’s offhanded comments on the number of mixed children in Fire Nation colonies. “After all, they are technically still Fire Nation territory.”

“It is my hope that we can come to a meaningful consensus on the status of the colonies,” Zuko says, a chill down his spine. He hadn’t thought to prepare for outright hostility — and yet, he should have. They have every right to question him. “It’s not my intention to continue any sort of occupation.”

“Very generous,” Nashu-or-Neshi says, just gently enough to avoid any accusations of sarcasm. Still, Zuko’s hand clenches on his glass, but before he can do anything stupid, like offer to give the colonies back out of sheer desperation, Jaikang comes up to his side.

“Fire Lord,” she says demurely, “your presence has been requested by the Northern Water Tribe cohort.”

“I understand,” he says, stepping back. “Thank you, Councillor Jaikang.”

Despite everything, Zuko is relieved to have her on his side. She may not be the most progressive person in Zuko’s life, but she’s by far the most reasonable of his top council members. She nods and steps up to the table. “I’m happy to field any questions regarding the Fire Nation’s surveys and censuses,” she says quietly, and Zuko realizes she’s heard it all.

“Thank you all,” Zuko says, “and I’m sorry to leave so abruptly. Please know that I trust Jaikang to speak on these matters.”

The rest of the people at the table nod at him respectfully, thanking him for his time. He walks over to the Northern Water Tribe cohort. “Ambassadors,” Zuko says once he gets to their table, bowing his head. “You honor me with your presence.”

They introduce themselves, and then start in on the discussion of reparative payments for Northern Water Tribe reconstruction. Out of the corner of his eye, Zuko sees Nashu (Neshi?) whisper something to a passing waiter.

“Ah— yes,” Zuko says, refocusing on the conversation when one of the Northern Water Tribe ambassadors asks if he will be discussing the matter with his council. “The economic committee is currently budgeting for reparations funds. They should have a decision on the matter by the end of the week, after consulting with the various ambassadors here.”

“Let’s hope the Fire Nation has enough gold to pay for its past,” Ambassador Tagaq says mildly, sipping her strawberry wine.

Zuko nods heavily. “It’s a burden that should be borne by the palace, not my people,” he says. “It’s important to me that our coffers are used, not our taxes.”

“Are your soldiers not responsible for the people they’ve killed?” Ambassador Uklak asks, eyes flashing. Then, with a brutal smile, the kind that wolves give to make themselves known as predators, Uklak adds, “Still. I respect your commitment to your people.”

“The majority of my people had little choice in this war,” Zuko says, perhaps too passionately for the table. He reins himself in, clears his throat. “This is not to say that I am anything but committed to a just peace, Ambassador Uklak.”

“Of course,” Uklak says. The conversation meanders onwards to various, slightly less contentious topics — as always, the uniquely hot Fire Nation weather comes up, as does their spicy food — until a waiter sets a plate in front of Ambassador Uklak. Uklak nods to the waiter, and Zuko tries not to feel that he’s missing something important.

“I should say hello to the other ambassadors,” Zuko says, once the opportunity presents itself. “Thank you for our discussion.”

“Thank you, Fire Lord,” Tagaq says, lifting her cup the way he’s seen some northern Earth Kingdom communities do. Zuko raises his cup as well, taking a sip, before stepping back into the fray.

The air has changed. There’s a tension in the room that Zuko hadn’t noticed when he first came to the Northern Water Tribe table. Zuko sees a group of Earth Kingdom ambassadors locked in discussion with Councillor Kenai, and one of his former military generals saying something quietly to one of the waiters.

“Hey,” Aang says from behind him, grabbing his wrist suddenly. Zuko flinches. “Come sit with us!”

“O— okay,” Zuko says, shaken, following Aang to the table. There’s a strange prickling sensation at the back of his neck, but when he turns around, no one’s eyes are on him. He sits down at the table, with Toph and Sokka. “Hey.”

“Was starting to think you wanted to ditch us,” Toph says, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed. “Are the Northern Water Tribe ambassadors really that interesting?”

Zuko laughs. “No, not at all.” He realizes Sokka’s looking at him and adds quickly, “Not that— I have a lot of respect for the Northern Water Tribe and the work they’ve done, their generosity in coming here. It’s a great honor.”

“ _A great honor_ ,” Aang mocks, tossing a rolled up napkin at him. Sokka looks away, and Zuko swallows. “I wanna know about everybody here. Do you have all the gossip?”

“He’s in _distress_ , Twinkletoes,” Toph says, kicking Zuko’s shin. Hard.

“ _Ow_ ,” Zuko mutters.

“Shut up, baby,” Toph snarks. She cocks her head to the side, as if she’s listening for something. “So. What’s up?”

“It’s nothing important,” Zuko says, keeping his eyes carefully away from Sokka. He looks over at Aang. “I don’t know everything about everyone. No one tells the Fire Lord their gossip.”

“What about that guy?” Aang asks, pointing to Councillor Kenai. Zuko shoves his hand down before anyone notices, hissing _That’s rude, Aang!_ “Well,” Aang continues, “I just wanna know.”

Zuko sighs. “He’s kind of a dick,” he says, trying to understand why he’s so stressed. It’s easier to let the tension go with his friends next to him, although Sokka’s set jaw isn’t exactly relaxing. “Doesn’t seem to care much about his work.”

“Hmm.” Aang puts his hand on his chin. “What about her?”

Zuko follows his eyes to Councillor Jaikang. “Actually, she’s surprisingly competent,” he admits. “I like her.”

“Aw, does Sparky have a _crush_?” Toph tosses a grape into her mouth with unerring aim as Aang laughs.

“I don’t— I don’t have a _crush_ ,” Zuko sputters, taken aback at how ridiculous the whole idea is. “She’s one of my councillors! She worked for my _dad!_ ”

That seems to satisfy the rowdy youths at his table, but Sokka picks silently at his food, a frown tugging at his mouth. Zuko wonders— but then Aang asks about yet another councillor, and Zuko obliges.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” says someone from behind Zuko’s shoulder. He looks behind him to see a woman — admittedly, quite ethereally beautiful — dressed in Fire Nation colors. He tries to rack his brain for a name, but before he has to admit that he can’t remember her, she says, “I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Leilani, from the eastern rim teachers’ union.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, discomfited by the fact that even with a name and a role, he still can’t place her. He’s certain he’s met the chairperson of the teachers’ union, who is also lovely, but also a three hundred pound weightlifter who transitioned into teaching later in life, far from the slim woman in front of him. Still, it doesn’t do to be rude. He takes her hand, and ushers her into a chair at the table with a smile. “Thank you for joining us, Leilani.”

“I’m sorry to leave so abruptly,” Sokka says suddenly, standing up. “I need— I should be talking to the Northern Water Tribe ambassadors. There’s no one else from the south here, so we need to coordinate for the meetings after I leave. It was good to see you, Fire Lord.” He nods respectfully to Zuko and Leilani, and claps a hand each on Aang and Toph’s shoulders, before pushing off to the Northern Water Tribe table.

“Ohhhh,” Toph says, a grin spreading on her face. “So _that’s_ it.”

“Please excuse them,” Zuko says through gritted teeth. “What can I help you with, Leilani?”

Leilani laughs, an airy sound that tinkles like windchimes. If Zuko were any less conscious of his status — the power of his station — and any less worried about Sokka, he might have tried to ask her into bed with him. Of course, he won’t, but he has to admit he’s a little enthralled. “I just wanted to say hello again,” she says brightly. “And to ask about the future of our educational curriculum.”

Her hand is dangerously close to his. Zuko clears his throat. “An excellent question,” he says. “Unfortunately, it’s perhaps one more fit for our education committee. I’m not an expert.”

“Don’t undersell yourself, Fire Lord,” Leilani says.

“Your voice is nice,” Toph interrupts suddenly. She puts a hand behind her head, and Zuko _knows_ she’s flexing, but he’s still impressed by her biceps. “I’m Toph.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Toph,” Leilani says distantly. She also turns to Aang, presumably out of politeness. “It is also such an honor to meet the Avatar.”

“Aw, it’s nice to meet you, too,” Aang says.

“How long have you been a teacher?” Toph asks. Her voice is pleasant enough, but Zuko— there’s something in his chest, or on the back of his neck, some spirit or a wind or maybe it’s just worry, maybe this is just what adulthood is like. Always worrying.

“Since I finished school,” Leilani says, voice cutting through the ringing in Zuko’s ears. “I’ve always known I wanted to be a teacher. I always wanted to change the world, one mind at a time.”

“That’s great,” Aang says. “What brings you to the ambassadorial dinner?”

“Well, you know,” she titters, her hand tightening on her glass. So she’s noticed Zuko’s distance, his disorientation. “It’s important for an educator to understand different cultures.”

“That’s admirable,” Zuko says.

He watches her look down at his plate, still half-full. “Aren’t you going to eat, Fire Lord?” she asks, innocently enough, but Zuko’s stomach turns. Is she— has she—

“I think I’ve had enough,” he jokes, rubbing his belly.

Leilani looks at the table, and seems to come to a decision. “Of course,” she says, her hands coming together into an elegant bow. “I must apologize for taking up so much of your time.”

“There’s no apology necessary,” Zuko says, unsettled. “I admire the work of our teachers very much.”

“That is good to hear.” She bows again to Toph and Aang. “It was a great honor to meet you both.”

“Likewise,” Toph says. Aang bows to her like an airbender, and she flees.

After a long moment, Aang frowns at Zuko’s plate. “Wasn’t it weird that she asked about the food?” Aang says. “I feel like that was weird.”

“Maybe she was just concerned,” Zuko says, but his mind is racing.

“You know half these people want you dead, right?” Toph’s voice is characteristically blunt, but Zuko flinches anyway. Her voice softens, and she adds, “These guys don’t matter. You’ve got the rest of your people on your side. I’m just saying, you should be on the lookout.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Zuko says, instead of what he wants to say, which is that this whole night has been a disturbing whirlwind of vague stressors, somehow worse for their ambiguity. “And anyway. I can’t exactly arrest people who haven’t done anything to me yet.”

“Not legally, anyway.” Toph flexes, baring her teeth, and Zuko shudders. “You know. If you ever need it.”

“I don’t need you to _illegally detain my council members_ ,” Zuko hisses, looking around to make sure no one’s overheard Toph threatening to _disappear_ his political opposition. Out of sheer self-preservation, he says, “Let’s go. We’ve been here long enough.”

“Finally!” Aang hops onto an airball, grinning. “You wanna take a ride on Appa?”

“Yeah, I’m tired of seeing,” Toph says, standing up in one heavy, brutal movement. Zuko nods to his guards, who quietly open the door for them as they escape.

Zuko breathes out. He forces Aang and Toph to wait by the door for several minutes, but Sokka never joins them.

“He’s probably busy with the Northern Water Tribe,” Aang says. Zuko nods. “I don’t think he’d mind if we left.”

“If you’re sure,” Zuko says, letting himself be dragged out to the courtyard where Appa waits. He wonders if Sokka’s glad to be rid of Zuko for a night. Wonders if Sokka had thought of this whole trip as a chore to be done.

He wobbles on his feet as Toph pushes the ground up from under him, hopping delicately onto Appa’s back. Zuko follows her with significantly less grace, sprawling across the saddle.

“Where do you wanna go?” Aang asks, urging Appa up. “Yip yip!”

“Anywhere,” Toph groans, stretching out on her back. “Just wanna get away from those stuffy adults. You better give me lots of snacks to make up for this, Sparky.”

“Why did you even come?” Zuko asks, although he doesn’t expect a reply. They both know why Toph came to see him, and why Toph pushed and pushed until Zuko let her push him out the door of that dinner. It’s the same reason Zuko’s the only one who gets to read Toph’s letters from her parents to her. They’re something of a kind. Two leaves of the same plant, Uncle would say.

Once they’re high enough, Aang hops back to join them in the saddle. “That was really stressful,” Aang says. “Why was it so…”

Zuko doesn’t know the word Aang’s looking for, but he knows exactly what he means. Sharp, maybe. He says, “It’s a very intense time.”

“Doesn’t help that fixing things means pissing off the people who can afford to hire assassins,” Toph says. It’s true, but Zuko still shudders at the thought of it. At the thought of San, hired to kill him because… why? Because he’d stopped weapons production in the north? Because Pizin’s hometown was caught up in the influx of economic refugees from mining company towns?

“I keep having these visions,” Zuko blurts out, instead of anything else even remotely related. But he’s committed to it, now, so he continues, “I think I saw the moon and ocean spirits in the turtleduck pond, a while ago.”

Aang nods like that makes sense. “There’s something happening in the spirit world all around the island,” Aang says. “I don’t really understand all of it, but the spirits are active. I think they know a new age is coming.”

“Do you think they’re on our side?” Zuko asks. He wonders about the spirit that came to him when Pizin spoke at the meeting on the northern economy, thinks of Agni’s light finding him even in the darkest rooms of the palace.

Toph snorts. “It’s not about sides,” she says. “It’s about balance. As long as you’re doing the right thing, you should be good.”

“That’s…” _Kind of a lot of pressure_ , Zuko wants to say, but he’s always known how fragile his throne is.

“Yeah,” Aang says. “The spirits can be scary.”

“Kind of an understatement, buddy,” Zuko replies. It’s a new moon tonight, and Zuko shivers at the darkness, the stars alone in the sky.

Aang ends up taking them to a mountain top, leaving Appa to graze on some brush while Toph forces Zuko to massage her ankles. Like this, Zuko wonders how hard it could be, to see a new age through its birth. Maybe it would just look like this: friendship, over a sleeping city, under the moon.

* * *

Someone knocks on his door just as Zuko has taken off his shirt, ready to go to bed after Appa deposited him on the palace rooftop. Warily, he calls, “Yes?”

“Hey, it’s me,” Sokka says. Zuko goes to open the door and they stand there, looking at each other for a long moment, until Zuko remembers he has to actually let Sokka in.

Zuko slides the door shut behind him as Sokka walks towards the window. He looks out for a long moment, while Zuko, for want of anything better to do, goes to sit on his bed.

Eventually, the silence becomes too much, even for Zuko. “I’m sorry,” he says awkwardly. This time, at least he can force out the right words, stilted as they are. “For earlier.”

Sokka shakes his head. He won’t look at Zuko — or, he’s looking at something else. The moon, Zuko thinks at first, but Yue is turned away from the world tonight. The only other thing outside of the window is the darkened city, spent after celebrating the arrival of so many ambassadors.

Finally, after enough time has passed, Zuko clears his throat. “I’m glad you came to see me, even though I was so disrespectful.” He wonders if this is the moment he loses Sokka. If this — after all of it, all of the cruelty that Sokka has put up with from Zuko himself and from the rest of the Fire Nation — if this is the final straw that breaks the ostrich-camel’s back.

“No,” Sokka laughs, turning back to look at Zuko. His eyes are wild. “You weren’t disrespectful.”

“You have the right to go where you want,” Zuko says. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”

Sokka stalks over to the desk. “ _This_ is the problem. Okay? You didn’t get angry because I was leaving, you got angry because I told you I wanted to stay. And I can’t—” He cuts himself off, breathing heavily despite the cool breeze coming in from the window.

Zuko doesn’t know what to do with that. “Are you— _do_ you want to stay?”

“Yes!” Sokka yells. “Yes! It wasn’t— pity isn’t what I feel for you, Zuko.”

Zuko nods. Sokka won’t accept it, but Zuko was right. He was disrespectful to characterize Sokka that way when he knows the truth of it. They’re friends. Sokka has given him friendship, the way Aang and Katara and Toph have given him friendship, inexplicably. It’s a grace he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to earn.

“I’m going in the morning, but I don’t want to go. Do you get what I’m trying to say here? I don’t _want_ to go.” The way Sokka says it— voice dull, hard, like he has no air left in his body. No spirit. Then Sokka laughs bitterly, incredulously. “Do you even want me to stay? I can’t believe— I’ve been here, yelling about how I want to stay with you, when you—”

“Of course I want you to stay,” Zuko says immediately, and then winces. As if Sokka needs this to be harder than it is. As if Sokka needs to see what Zuko is— to see that Zuko is desperate for him, beyond the already unreasonable way he clings to his other friends. “But this isn’t where you need to be. I understand that.”

“I know you do.” Sokka sits down at the chair beside the desk, fiddling with the Fire Lord seal. It is possibly treason for someone other than Zuko to touch that. “You know—” Sokka starts, and then taps the seal against the desk. He tries again. “I was so afraid of you during the war.”

Zuko knows. He’s seen Katara when someone near her firebends unexpectedly. He knows what he is. “I know.”

“It’s hard. You were a teenager. And we’re _friends_. I don’t hold anything against you. But your advisors weren’t peacemakers five years ago, were they, Zuko?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but Zuko still answers. “No.” He feels his stomach curl in on itself, a nauseating ache. He’ll never be done paying his debt, and even so, it’s more than he deserves just to have the chance. The only thing he’s good for is working to fix his father’s — his own — mistakes. “I understand what you’re saying, Sokka.”

“Do you?” Sokka puts the seal down and turns to look him in the eyes. “Are you hearing anything other than your need to feel guilty about the entire hundred year war right now?”

“It’s not guilt, it’s _purpose_ ,” Zuko says. “There’s a point to it.”

Sokka sighs. “I’m trying to say that me being here is undermining the good work you’re doing,” he continues, as though Zuko hasn’t spoken. “Your advisors don’t see a Water Tribe ambassador. They see a kid from a backwater ice nation. I need you to be a good Fire Lord, because that’s the only way your councillors are going to listen to you and actually make a change.”

Zuko nods sharply. “I take my work seriously,” he says.

“No,” Sokka says, “that’s not— I’m trying to say that I’m not helpful here. I’m better off out in the world, doing the small stuff, building houses, training kids to throw boomerangs, telling stories about the war. You don’t need an idiot like me messing around with Fire Nation politics.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Zuko says reflexively, and then thinks on it more. Sokka’s _really_ not an idiot. “Sokka. You’re _really_ not an idiot.”

“Thanks.” Sokka spreads his hands wide. “But this stuff, this policy stuff? I’m no good to you here. I want to visit you, but I can’t stay here when I’m nothing but a distraction.”

“You’re not a distraction.” Zuko feels it like a hook tugging at his chest, up through his esophagus, until the truth finally outs: “You _are_ good for me.”

“Your councillors don’t seem to agree.”

The way he says it — as though they’ve said something to him, as though they’ve made it clear what they think of Sokka — burns in Zuko’s heart. “If they’re disrespecting you, then that means I need to do better. I _will_ do better,” he vows.

“This isn’t the most important front you need to be fighting on right now,” Sokka says wryly. “I think we’ll live if your councillors keep looking down on a random Water Tribe teenager while you figure everything else out.”

“Do you think I wouldn’t stand up for you?” Zuko asks. He feels empty. Has Sokka thought, all this time— “Your dignity is more important than any economic debate.”

“I know.” Sokka rubs a hand over his eyes, and Zuko belatedly realizes the night is half over. “I know you’d stand up for me. That’s not a question.”

“Good,” Zuko huffs. They sit there in silence for a moment.

“You’re so skinny,” Sokka finally says, half-jokingly. “Should I be worried?”

Zuko shakes his head. He’s building up the muscle he lost in the immediate aftermath of his poisoning, but it’s still slow going. “I’m eating now,” he says, the closest he can come to admitting the fear that dogged him in those early days, when Aang acted as a de facto taste tester and his staff made food in front of him just so that he’d eat something.

“Good,” Sokka responds distractedly. “That’s good.”

He wonders if Sokka realizes what eating means to him. Undoubtedly Sokka has forgotten the assassination attempt — it should barely have been news outside of the capital, considering he lived with no long-lasting injury. His dismissal shouldn’t cut deep.

Still. “You have an early morning tomorrow,” Zuko says abruptly.

Sokka stands up. “O— oh. Yeah.” He nearly trips over his feet getting out of the desk chair, stumbling towards the door. “You don’t have to see me off, if you’re busy.”

“Oh.” Zuko wonders if Sokka wants him not to. If Sokka wants a clean break. “I— okay.”

Sokka’s eyebrows furrow down into a hard line, and then Zuko hears him whisper, _fuck it_. “I’m giving you a hug,” Sokka says, coming closer. Zuko stands up just as Sokka reaches him and pulls him in. Against Zuko’s ear, he murmurs, “I miss you all the time, dude.”

“I miss you, too.” Zuko’s reply is muffled in Sokka’s shoulder. He steps back. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” he decides, and it’s clearly the right decision when Sokka grins.

“Good. Great. I’ll let you sleep,” Sokka says, walking backwards. He — Zuko rolls his eyes — he _waves_ at Zuko on his way out, which is absurd, and then closes the door behind him.

Zuko sits down heavily on the edge of his bed. The two of them keep doing this strange dance, spending time with each other in brief snapshots. A year and a half since the end of the war and Sokka’s still the thing he looks forward to, some strange talisman he keeps hold of in his heart.

He leans forward, burying his head in his hands. One of these times will be the last time Sokka is in the Fire Nation. Zuko can see it now: the two of them drifting apart, those terse letters once every two months, three months, full years between correspondence. Would it be worse to lose him like that, or all at once? How is Zuko supposed to know when it’s time to say goodbye?

* * *

Zuko asks Councillor Jaikang to fill in for him at a meeting with municipal Earth Kingdom ambassadors so that he can see Sokka off.

The dock is wet with sea spray, but the sun is bright in the sky. Zuko feels almost cheated; he’d wanted a gloomy morning, something to make it real, to make tangible the awful sensation of Sokka leaving him again, but instead it’s as cheery a day as ever.

“A good day for travel,” Sokka says beside him, and, well. Yes. Maybe that’s why Zuko is so angry at the sun.

“Be safe,” Zuko says, because he’s not going to say _I miss you_ unless Sokka says it first.

Sokka nods, his hair bouncing gently. Unlike Zuko’s uncomfortably pale skin, Sokka is beautiful and warm, glowing in the morning light. Maybe it’s for the best that he didn’t stay. If Zuko had seen him like this under a lazy afternoon sun, Zuko might have destroyed the capital just to keep Sokka for a few more days. As it is, Zuko is resisting a disturbingly strong urge to light the entire dock on fire.

“I’ll write you a letter,” Sokka promises, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder. His shirt rides up, exposing a sharp hipbone, and Zuko swallows. “But you better write back, okay?”

Zuko curls his fists in to keep himself from reaching out to touch Sokka, hold his forearm, wrap his palm around the back of his neck. “Yeah. I will, I promise.”

In one fell swoop, Sokka leans in and hugs him, his arms heavy and hot around Zuko’s body. As Zuko struggles to hug back, Sokka buries his face in Zuko’s shoulder. “Longer next time, for sure.”

“Yes, I hope so,” Zuko replies, muffled in Sokka’s shirt.

Sokka releases him, holding him at arm’s length. “You should come to the Southern Water Tribe! You might actually die from the cold, though.”

“If I survived swimming to the Avatar in the North Pole, I think I can survive your home village,” Zuko snorts, and then winces. Fortunately, though, Sokka just laughs at the reminder of Zuko’s past transgressions.

“Yeah, okay.” Sokka steps back, releases Zuko. He stands there for a moment, nodding just before it gets awkward, nervous energy in his shoulders. “I’ll— uh. See you.”

“Yes.” Zuko smiles faintly, before taking a step back, forcing himself to put distance between himself and Sokka before he begs to join Sokka on his ship. “Take care, Sokka.”

Sokka’s stance shifts into something more natural, more sober, as he smiles. “You, too, Zuko.”

Zuko watches him board his ship, and turns back to the palace before he can see it sail away.

* * *

The Earth Kingdom delegation successfully negotiates for reduced tariffs on Earth Kingdom goods in the Fire Nation. The Water Tribes both manage to get a two-year funding commitment for reparative construction. Over rice wine, generous feasts, and cultural performances, Zuko’s government tells the rest of the world that they are on the same side, in the best way they know how.

In a small mountain town in a northern province, in a cramped house with a lantern hanging from the ceiling, two young women meet with their grandmother around a crooked dining table. Grandmother reminds her grandchildren of the time under Fire Lord Azulon, the naive hope they had when Ozai took the throne. She reminds them that war-kings can never be trusted.

In a neighbouring village, angry ex-soldiers gather their arms and their uniforms, ready to support the provincial forces in quelling the traitorous rebellions springing up across the mountains. The Fire Lord’s new commitment to peace is a slap in the face to the thousands of their friends, lovers, who have died for the Fire Nation.

The forests that surround company towns and small settlements are cold and quiet; beautiful in the mornings, but unsettling in the nighttime. A doctor lights a torch and treats sick children in the forest, hiding from the militia that has labeled him a criminal.

Each of them — every single one — knows only one thing: the Fire Lord is not on their side.

* * *

“Fire Lord,” Councillor Jaikang says quietly, after the rest of the councillors have left the meeting. “I’ve come to request a transfer.”

“A transfer,” Zuko repeats mindlessly, and then shakes himself. “To which position, Councillor?”

Jaikang bows her head. “I wish to serve as the Fire Nation representative at the Northern Air Temple reconstruction project. I have already spoken with Avatar Aang about the possibility of leaving with him in two months, pending your approval, of course.”

Northern Air Temple. That’s— that’s far. That’s on the _other side of the world_. “I— I see,” Zuko says.

Clearly, he did not succeed in expressing his nonchalance; Jaikang’s face falls almost imperceptibly, but Zuko winces. “I apologize for the late notice, Lord Zuko. I mean no disrespect. I have been honored to serve in your court, and would be honored to continue to do so if it is not your wish for me to serve at the Air Temple.”

Zuko’s mouth twitches downwards. His only half-decent advisor — the only decent person in this whole spirits-damned palace, other than Heda — and she’s jumping at the chance to leave him. And he would be a monster to force her to stay. “You have not disrespected me, Councillor Jaikang,” Zuko says formally. “Please join Avatar Aang at the Air Temple, with my blessing. You bring honor to the Fire Nation with your service.”

Jaikang smiles. “Thank you, Lord Zuko,” she says. “And please don’t worry — I have every confidence that my assistant, Pek, will prove themself once they take over from me.”

“I trust your judgment,” Zuko replies, and bows in a clear dismissal. Jaikang returns the bow hastily and leaves Zuko to his worries.

Aang must have been thinking of finding a representative when he asked Zuko about the advisors at the ambassadorial dinner. He’d mentioned it over the picnic with Katara, too, all that time ago, but Zuko hadn’t paid attention. _Stupid_ , Zuko thinks, _it wasn’t just a conversation_. How naive of him, to have thought that he could just shoot the shit with his old friend Aang without consequences. How dangerous, to think that it was acceptable to be so careless. What if Aang had asked about the protests in the north, or the negotiations over the colonies, rather than minimally incriminating information about Zuko’s council? What if Zuko had thought — what if Zuko _hadn’t_ thought, the way he hadn’t thought at that dinner?

It throws the rest of his interactions into question. For the rest of the evening, Zuko obsesses over his conversations with Toph, the few candid letters he’s sent to Katara. He racks his brain, trying to remember if he’s ever said anything suspicious, anything secret, wondering whether his pathetically obvious pining for Sokka might be construed as frailty. Whether — out of malice or some other intent or even pure accident — Sokka might let slip to his father that the Fire Nation is tearing itself apart in the transition from war; whether Hakoda might take his chance for vengeance.

Sokka’s voice comes to him out of his memory: _I need you to be a good Fire Lord_.

He doesn’t have room to make mistakes — not now, not when his people are clamoring for leadership and the rest of the world is ready for the Fire Nation to turn on the harmony restoration movement at any moment. And right now, a mistake looks like leaning on the people who have only faced violence and oppression from the Fire Nation. Does Katara really want to know about the latest councillor Zuko is struggling with? Could Aang truly be interested in Zuko’s worries about the economic state of his country, when Zuko’s palace was built on the dynasty that killed his people?

It shouldn’t have taken him this long to realize that his friends, just like the rest of the world, deserve a Fire Lord who solves problems, not a Fire Lord who makes new ones. He has to be perfect, and that’s something Zuko has never been in his life. But the war is done, and everything’s starting over; this time, he thinks. This time he’ll do it right.

* * *

Zuko’s exhaustion is a physical burden. He’s had at least four cups of coffee today, and he feels wired and anxious and sore. He’ll never forgive his secretaries for scheduling this meeting at the end of the day.

Of course, Zuko’s the only one who thinks it’s worth his time at all.

“You really don’t have to attend this meeting,” Councillor Ning simpers in the hallway. “You surely have much more important tasks to take care of.”

“Nothing is more important to me than my people,” Zuko says. He opens the door to his council room, where six representatives from the northern Fire Nation are waiting for him, along with his economic committee. “Thank you for coming, esteemed delegates,” Zuko says, and then sits down at the head of the table.

He’s nervous. It took weeks of back and forth before anyone would agree to come down, thinly veiled antagonism in their letters. He’d begged them to come, perhaps too effusively. _My aim is not to take control from your organizations, but to support our people_ , he’d written desperately. _It is my hope that the national government can build harmony with our siblings in the north, not take it away_.

“You honor us with your presence, Fire Lord,” one of the representatives says, bowing their head, before glaring around the room. “We were uncertain if you would be joining us.”

Zuko freezes. He wonders which of his councillors decided to spread a rumor like that — whether it was malicious, or if they truly were just wondering whether Zuko would make it. “It is you who honor me,” Zuko says tightly. “I am grateful for your time.”

The economic committee nods, perhaps cowed, and the delegates begin to introduce themselves. Peishu and Omaki, of the Northern People’s Alliance; Onenki, on behalf of the Mountain Mining Union Coalition; Denin and Daiko, representing the various healthcare workers scattered throughout the north; and the one who had spoken before, Jenko. “I’m here on behalf of the Justice And Love movement for the restoration of sexual liberty,” they say.

The economic committee mutters, a disrespect they hadn’t dared to show the other delegates. Zuko knows exactly why: Sozin’s laws are still in place. Zuko assumes that it’s only the fact that Jenko is clearly a warrior that stops them from outright objecting.

“Thank you for coming,” Zuko says, when they’ve all finished their introductions. “You are always welcome in my palace.” He makes eye contact with Jenko, especially. He hasn’t turned over Sozin’s laws yet, but Jenko’s arrival is a slap in the face. Sexuality is more than a personal struggle for Zuko; he sees it in Jenko’s eyes, in the fact that a movement like Justice And Love exists. His people need to be freed. It can’t wait.

The conversation opens with prepared statements from the delegates. Zuko is astonished. He’s heard so little about the situation in the north.

“Two activists have been killed by the provincial militia so far,” Omaki says, voice trembling. “It is our hope that land reform and demilitarization will stop the killings. Our people demand a comprehensive food aid program, a solid plan for a just transition out of war manufacturing, and an immediate reduction in the weapons budget of the northern provincial militia.”

Omaki sits down in silence. The rest of the delegates are stone-faced. Zuko’s economic councillors turn to each other. One of them starts, “I guess some food aid on a temporary basis could be—”

“Stop,” Zuko interrupts harshly. They look at him, shocked. Zuko keeps his eyes on Omaki. “Do you know the names of the people my militia has killed?”

He doesn’t want to claim them, but they are his. Every military force in this country is his, and he had a responsibility to fix things, and he didn’t. He can only move forward.

“Ama and Enki, Fire Lord,” Omaki says softly. She blinks. “Ama was a good friend.”

Zuko inhales sharply. “I’m sorry for your loss, Omaki,” he says. “These deaths are a stain on the history of the Fire Nation. There is no justification.”

Omaki nods. Zuko looks at his economic committee. “The provincial militia’s budget will be cut in half, with the aim of eventually transitioning to a civilian security team, so that budget cuts can supplement a two-year food aid program,” Zuko says. “The mining coalition should lead the work here, with input from the people’s alliance. I want the committee to work under Onenki’s leadership to transition the northern factories into local production. Onenki, what is the primary output of your mines? What do your people need?”

Onenki shuffles through their papers. “We mine iron, primarily. One of the plants already produces steel for warships, which could easily transition into supplying steel for other equipment. We also have a number of high-altitude forests which provide excellent wood for building and other uses. The problem is, our people are all wage workers in mines or on farms, and they’re all hungry, even though we have enough rice terraces to feed the population. Those are owned privately, though, by large corporations, who mostly export rice to the south for processing. Rice and fruit.”

“I see.” Zuko’s head is spinning, but he can’t appear weak. Blinking rapidly to force moisture into his dry eyes, he says, “Onenki, I’d like for you to be in charge of the northern economic reconstruction project. You have the full support of my economic committee.”

One of the councillors protests. “Sir—”

“Obviously it’s a large responsibility,” Zuko says airily. “But with Onenki’s expertise, and the expertise of the coalition, I’m sure your workload won’t increase significantly.” He narrows his eyes. “I trust there is no fundamental objection to the project goals?”

The councillor looks away. “No, Fire Lord Zuko,” he acquiesces.

“Let’s continue,” Zuko says. The next speaker is Daiko, who requests a budget for building healthcare infrastructure through the north which Zuko immediately grants, and Jenko, who outlines the struggles of their people. Jenko uses a word for them — for people like them — that Zuko has to ask them to break into its roots: _creative-love_.

“Surely you’re not entertaining this,” one of his councillors says. Councillor Ning, from earlier. Zuko scowls. “I’m sympathetic towards the plight of the northern people, of course, but you can’t expect me to believe that we should be giving special attention to— to experimenting _teenagers_! Unless you wish to encourage deviation across the country.”

Zuko, exhausted, finds he has no more patience for the civility expected of him. “These delegates have come from our furthest province to honor us with their presence,” he hisses. Ning’s shoulders go tense, but Zuko barely notices. He waves his left hand at the northern representatives, but doesn’t take his eyes off his councillors. “They have come to tell me the truth of things. A truth which I should have heard from you. Your disrespect brings shame to my council room. I will not tolerate it.”

Ning’s head bows in a desperate, hard flinch. “I apologize, Fire Lord,” she whispers.

Zuko turns to Jenko. “Tell me what your people need,” he says.

“They’re afraid of the law,” Jenko says softly, wide-eyed. “Creative-love people… our families are not evil. They are afraid for us, so they try to punish behavior they don’t understand. They think it’s safer for us to live a lie than to be a truthful target. The education system is an important part, just as the rest of our culture is, but it starts with the law.” They close the folder in front of them to look directly at Zuko. “It is the first thing we need. Our existence can no longer be illegal. We must be as human as you.”

Zuko breathes for a moment. “I need a copy of the criminal code,” he snaps to one of the councillor’s aides.

The whole room waits for the short minute it takes her to find the slim book in the council room’s file system. The council room has no windows, but Zuko is certain that he can feel warm sunlight on the back of his neck, hear koi splashing in water behind him. He shakes it off.

The aide brings the book to Zuko. Sozin’s law is one of the last added, written in the typically short language of Fire Nation legislation; they are not wordy Earth Kingdom bureaucrats. _Law 46: It is against the law of the Fire Nation to marry or to have sexual intercourse with a person of the same sex. This criminal act is punishable by a minimum of 2 years in prison. Re-education is an encouraged component of rehabilitation._

His hands shake. He looks up at his council room, this selection of economic councillors and strangers from the north crowded around a table in the last acceptable post-dinner working timeslot. It is not the time for this, and yet, perhaps it is the only time.

“I repeal Law 46,” Zuko says, his clear voice ringing through the room. He keeps his gaze on the far door, unable to meet anyone’s eyes for fear that he’ll falter. Their minute-taker pauses for a moment before writing it down. “I strike it down and pardon all offenses charged under this law. I order the release all prisoners who have been imprisoned exclusively by the enforcement of Law 46.”

“Fire Lord Zuko,” one of the other councillors starts. “Please, you cannot— this is an economic meeting, sir. You should wait for the next political committee meeting. We cannot advise on this matter.”

But Zuko knows: this _is_ economic. It is the struggle of his people who cannot eat, because they are turned away by grocers and refugee houses. It is the struggle of his people who cannot work, because they are turned away by factory owners and landlords. It is the struggle of his people who cannot live in their homes, because they are turned away by their families. Justice begins at the root, not the surface.

“This is my will,” Zuko says, turning to look at his economic committee. “Do you challenge me?”

He knows what he’s asking. Will you fight me in an Agni Kai? Will you test your power against the boy who survived years of exile and disgrace, the man who still bears the brand of his last fire duel?

One by one, his councillors bow their heads.

Zuko turns to the left. Jenko is stock still. They are crying.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” they start, voice trembling. Zuko’s fists clench under the table. “You can’t— you can’t understand what this means. You have given us hope. In one night, you’ve changed— not everything, but you’ve started it. You don’t know what it means to be this way, but you still— you _changed_ it.”

Perhaps it’s the late hour, or it’s the anger still boiling under Zuko’s skin, the anger on behalf of his people. He thinks of Jet again. He thinks of the careless way they treated each other, the violence under the surface every time they came together. The brutal press of Jet’s hand against Zuko’s throat one time, and the way Zuko had been certain that this was the best he could ever do.

If he’d known anyone else like him. If he’d ever seen a— he loves the word Jenko uses, a _creative-love_ person. Maybe he would’ve had hope.

All of that together, then, pushes Zuko to make a decision he cannot reverse. He looks Jenko straight in the eyes, lets himself feel their tears. He says, quietly: “I understand it very well, Jenko.”

Jenko blinks for a moment, and then their mouth drops open in shock, just as Zuko’s councillors begin to whisper among themselves. Zuko abruptly comes back to himself and realizes what he’s done.

“We have heard the concerns of all six delegates,” Zuko says. His councillors eye each other, and Zuko knows word will be out by tomorrow morning at the latest. It’s possible he’s invited another assassination attempt. “I think our meeting can be concluded.”

“Yes, Fire Lord,” they all say, in varying tones of wonder and disbelief, and file out. Jenko remains, even after the minute-taker has left.

“Yes, Jenko?”

“You’re very brave, Fire Lord Zuko,” Jenko says softly. They bow deeply, face parallel to the floor. “You honor us with your love.”

Zuko feels the threatening burn of tears at the back of his eyes again. “Please get up,” he whispers, and Jenko rises up from their bow. “It is you who honor me,” he says one more time, even more fervently than before. “You made me realize what I should’ve done many months ago. I’m sorry it took so long.”

He bows, equally deep. “Thank you,” he says, with as much genuine gratitude he can express.

“You’re welcome, Fire Lord,” Jenko says. Zuko comes out of his bow. “I look forward to seeing you again sometime.”

“Yes,” Zuko says, smiling. He escorts Jenko to the door. “I look forward to it as well.”

* * *

The day after Zuko repeals Law 46, he finds he’s unable to eat.

His kitchen staff appear to be as supportive as ever. The kitchen sends up his favorite jook for breakfast, but Zuko looks at it and can’t stop thinking about that slicing pain under a red sky. Katara and Aang aren’t here anymore to take care of him.

Lightheadedness follows him for the rest of the day. It’s his duty to push through — it’s his duty to eat, he thinks, disgusted with himself, but he _can’t_. It would be more irresponsible to eat food he hasn’t seen prepared with his own two eyes, he tells himself. It would be irresponsible to die.

As he leaves the council room to take a brief break, Heda stops him with a hand on his shoulder. She usually manages things from the guard tower, but he’s grateful for her broad presence next to him.

“The only person who’s touched this is Head Chef Enkin and myself, Fire Lord,” she says quietly, handing him a small package.

Zuko turns it over in his hands. The wax paper has been sealed by melting, making it impossible to tamper with without leaving some sort of tear. He pries it open to reveal four plain steamed buns, still warm.

“The taste is very plain,” Heda goes on. “It would be easy to tell if someone had added an extra ingredient, but of course, Enkin is very traditional.”

Somehow, the oblique nature of Heda’s approach makes it easier. He doesn’t have to be recovering. He can just eat. Zuko tries a nibble of one of the buns. It turns in his stomach for a brief, terrifying moment, but it settles. “I’ll save the rest for later,” he says, resealing the package with firebending. He’s gratified to see that even resealed, the package has obviously been opened.

Heda doesn’t comment on his obvious plan to wait for the poison to strike before eating more. “I wanted to tell you something else,” she says, walking with Zuko to the open balcony.

“Yes, Heda?”

“I’ve increased your security. I thought you’d want to know that there are more guards in the palace, after yesterday, although I hope there will be no need for them.”

Zuko’s face flushes with a humbling combination of shame and gratitude. He has known for a long time that his rash decisions have consequences, but he didn’t even think to consider that a heightened threat of violence towards him would have implications for the whole palace. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you—”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Fire Lord.” Heda looks outwards, into the city, but Zuko sees frailty in the line of her mouth. He is shamed, again, for his political lethargy. He should’ve overturned the law from the start.

“Thank you, Heda,” he whispers. She inclines her head, and Zuko says, “I’ll return to my meeting now.”

“I’ll come with you,” she offers, turning away from the bright sky to walk with Zuko.

The steamed buns make a delicious post-meeting snack.

* * *

In a small town just eight miles southeast of the Fire Nation capital, two men pore over a letter, received overnight from a lone rider on a swift mongoose lizard. It is just like the dozen other letters delivered across the country to the faithful, the brave.

_This so-called Fire Lord is a traitor to his people. Our people are proud and powerful; yet, under Ozai’s disinherited child, we are forced to bow to the barbaric water savages, cater to the whims of the airbending avatar, send money to earth peasants even though we built their roads, their militaries, gave them banks and schools._

_Prepare yourselves. Soon, we will restore our rightful leader. Our people will rise up when they see we have taken the first courageous step._

One of them burns the letter after they have read it, committed its contents to memory. The other’s hand snaps out into the air to kill a dragonfly, which has been buzzing abrasively all evening. The moon covers herself with a cloud.

* * *

Soon after Aang poaches Jaikang, Zuko receives his second letter from Sokka. From the looks of the seal, Sokka’s somewhere in the central Earth Kingdom. Zuko hadn’t thought to ask where Sokka was headed.

_Dear Zuko,_

_Let’s start with the facts: I miss you. I just got to Ishuma — it’s this small town near Full Moon Bay. I don’t know how long this will take to get to you (the office here says under fifteen days, but I’m not optimistic), so I don’t know where I’ll be by the time you get this letter, but I can definitively say that no matter where you go, exploring the world is a lot more fun when you’re not running for your life or preparing for a war._

_A lot of the people I’ve met so far are big fans of yours. I keep trying to tell them that I’m way more important in the grand scheme of things, but none of them want to hear the truth. It is always the fate of a wise man to be ignored by fools, I suppose. A burden I am hard pressed to bear._

_(I’m just kidding, by the way. I wouldn’t actively try to damage your image… and anyway, it’s not like they’re wrong. The work you’re doing has impacts here, in the middle of the Earth Kingdom! You’ve really given people hope, Zuko. You and Aang working together.)_

_I’m writing Aang his own letter, too, but you have to say hi to him for me if you get this letter first. Don’t worry, I wrote the same note in Aang’s letter, so if he’s already given you a hello from me, that’s why._

_I’ve been thinking a lot about the last time I saw you. I feel like I didn’t make it clear enough: I want to spend time with you. I want to live with you in the Fire Nation, at least for the next few years. Maybe more than that. You’re important to me, and I want you to know that._

_I met some people out here who have been writing about the war. It’s funny. The war hit everyone, but parts of the Earth Kingdom are still so insulated… there are kids here who’ve never met anyone who fought in the war. They tell stories about it like it’s a fairy tale._

_They told me the story of how you got your scar._

_Would you believe I didn’t know? Seriously. I had no idea. I figured it wasn’t the type of training accident most kids have, but I didn’t realize it was Ozai, that sick fuck. I’m sorry I found out halfway across the world, rather than hearing it from you. I guess I’m sorry for writing it in this letter, when I’m not there to see your face or make you some tea. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you live with a mark from that man, and I’m grateful you survived to be here in the world._

_That was really depressing. I just meant to say that it’s weird living here. I’m glad to have the chance to sail around the world and learn from so many different people, but I also miss home. I miss you._

_I don’t really know what else to write about. I made it here by passing through that big forest on the peninsula just north of the Si Wong desert. I wish I could paint, because the sunlight through the trees was indescribable, even for a master (s)wordsmith (heh) like me. My plan is to visit Ba Sing Se, then go through the mountains to the Northern Air Temple. I know Aang was planning to leave the Fire Nation soon, so maybe I’ll meet up with him there before I hit the Northern Water Tribe._

_Zuko, have you ever seen a sunset from a mountain up north? I guess you’ve got lots of mountains in the Fire Nation, too. There’s just something really special about the sunset over snowy peaks as far as you can see. I’d like to take you through the northern Earth Kingdom mountains sometime if you can afford to get away._

_That’s it. This letter’s getting out of hand. You better write back — send it to Toph’s address in Ba Sing Se or your uncle’s, and I’ll get it. I’m going to spend at least a month there once I arrive, so you’ve got plenty of time._

_Seriously. Write me back. Miss you._

_—Sokka_

Zuko reads the letter again, the polar opposite of that sparse note he received the last time Sokka wrote to him. He drinks in the details: Full Moon Bay, Earth Kingdom entertainment, sunset over snowy mountains. Zuko’s scar.

His hands are itching to write a response. He has so many things he could say, so many things he wants to say. He wants to ask what Sokka thinks about the forest, wants to hear how Sokka would try to describe it; he wants to know the most ill-advised purchases Sokka has made, the silliest conversations he’s had, the person he’s happiest to have met, the food he’s been most excited to try; he wants Sokka to tell him every detail about himself, so Zuko can fill himself up with them.

He wants to unload his grief and his exhaustion onto Sokka, captive through the ink and paper. He wants to write, _Getting that scar was the worst day of my life, and it was the most important lesson I’ve ever learned_. He wants to write, _I grieved with Aang for the loss of his people, and if you’d stayed for more than one night we could have talked about it_. He wants to write, _You didn’t say anything about the fact that I was poisoned two months before you showed up for that dinner, and I didn’t want to tell you about it, but maybe I wanted you to ask. Maybe I wanted you to at least pretend you cared_.

In the end, Zuko’s passion expands beyond its natural limits, and Zuko forcibly tamps it down. There’s no need to send Sokka letters like that. The whole point of Sokka leaving was to unburden himself. To relieve himself of the tension of life in the Fire Nation. The least Zuko can do is respect that.

 _Dear Sokka_ , Zuko writes.

_Thank you for your letter. It means a great deal to me that you wanted to share your travels with me._

_You are equally important to me._ He scratches it out. As if Sokka needs more guilt tripping into staying. He tries again: _What you said, about wanting to stay in the Fire Nation, is very generous but unnecessary. Please feel free to live wherever you would like; you owe nothing to the Fire Nation._

_I’m glad you found out about the scar my father gave me, although I hope you don’t think I was hiding it from you purposefully. I would never lie to you. I figured you knew, although Aang and Katara didn’t know so maybe I shouldn’t have assumed. Many of the councillors and all of the current military officers were there when it happened, so I never thought to make a point of telling you._

_Your invitation to join you to watch a sunset is very kind. Don’t wait for me, though — I doubt I’ll be able to take a vacation for a very long time. If you find someone else to join you in watching the sunset in the mountains, feel free to share it with them instead._

_I would welcome any further letters from you._

_Yours,_

_Zuko_

Zuko looks consideringly at his sign-off. Really, he should have signed it with Sokka’s unadorned dash, or perhaps with an equally honest but less intimate _Sincerely_. He can’t bring himself to cross it out, though—for one thing, Sokka would see it, which would make the whole endeavor pointless, but for another… Zuko can’t bring himself to remove this one reference to his feelings.

Perhaps it’s too impersonal. He hopes Sokka doesn’t take it as an affront… Sokka’s letter was so raw, so clear, not couched behind the strange politeness that Zuko can’t shake when he puts brush to paper. This is what Zuko has to offer, though. He seals up the letter and sends it to the Jasmine Dragon, along with a short note for Uncle and a promise to write him a longer letter soon.

* * *

Sokka never does write him back. Aang eventually writes that Sokka’s with him at the Northern Air Temple, so at least he’s safe.

In the weeks and months after Aang leaves him alone in the palace, Zuko occasionally wakes up in the morning with a sore pain in his stomach, so deep he presses his fist into his own abdomen to soothe it. He wonders if it’s some strange holdover from the poisoning or if — more likely — it’s his body, signalling his profound loneliness. Because he _is_ lonely. There is Zuko, and then there are the people in his palace whose perspective on the transition out of war is, at best, neutral.

Toph sometimes makes a secretary or assistant write for her, and Katara will send him the occasional messenger hawk. Zuko holes himself up in his room to read through legislation, eating when Heda tells him to. Months trudge on and so, too, does Zuko.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, the last chapter! I don't want to spoil anything or ramble on, so more notes at the end :) Enjoy!

An Earth Kingdom freight ship docks at the capital port bearing steel, stoneware, and, unexpectedly, Sokka. Zuko isn’t there to greet the ship because he — obviously — had no idea an international ambassador was on board; instead, he’s blindsided by Sokka knocking on his council room door.

“Yes,” Zuko calls distractedly, “I’m just preparing for the next— _Sokka_?”

“Hey,” Sokka says. His voice is deeper than Zuko remembered it. “I know, I know, I didn’t write before coming. I just got on the boat before I realized I hadn’t even sent you a letter about it, my bad. How’s it going?”

Zuko’s jaw drops. He hasn’t seen Sokka in months — almost a year, almost the length again of that long stretch of time Sokka was with him in the first part of his reign. How’s it _going_? “It’s— fine—”

“Stupid question,” Sokka laughs. He looks at ease, Zuko thinks. Some time away from the pressure cooker of the caldera was good for him. Sokka takes a few steps into the council room. “I need to settle in, but I wanted to say hi before anything else.”

“Yeah, yes—” Zuko suddenly realizes he’s on the _other side of the room_ and drops his papers, walking towards Sokka. “Spirits, Sokka, it’s been— it’s been ten _months_ —”

“Yeah, bud,” Sokka says as Zuko barrels into him, hugging him with maybe more passion than the Fire Lord should be applying to any personal matter. “Hey. I missed you, too.”

Zuko breathes him in. Whatever perfume or oil Sokka normally uses — _used to_ use, since Zuko has no idea what Sokka’s normal is these days — has been worn away by transit. He smells like sweat, like himself, and it’s— it’s _good_.

Zuko steps back just as a council member rounds the corner at the end of the hallway. “It’s good to see you, Ambassador,” Zuko says formally, and Sokka’s mouth ticks upwards.

“Likewise, Fire Lord,” Sokka says politely. Zuko’s hands clench briefly around Sokka’s biceps, and then he lets him go, just as Councillor Peng makes it to the doorway. “I’ll see you later?”

“After you’ve gotten some rest,” Zuko says. His eyes rove over Sokka’s face in one last ditch effort to take him all in. His cheekbones are more pronounced, but it’s a natural consequence of growing older, nothing to worry about, Zuko thinks. Sokka’s starting to grow out his beard. His shoulders shift enticingly under his top, collarbones peeking out of the neckline, and— Zuko forces himself to get a grip.

They nod, once, and Sokka turns away to let the councillors enter the room. Zuko tries to focus on the meeting, but all he can think of is Sokka’s comforting warmth, the feel of his muscles, his smell. The fact that Sokka is here.

* * *

That evening, Sokka comes to his room. Zuko tells his guards that he’ll be entertaining a diplomatic guest, which — embarrassingly — just makes them snicker. Fortunately, the kitchens seem eager to latch onto any excuse to ply the Fire Lord with more food than he can handle; they’ve sent up two trays of Fire Nation feast fare and a whole cart of desserts.

They start by making small talk about Sokka’s travels and Zuko’s work. Zuko learns that Sokka visited Kyoshi Island, spent some time in the desert, helped Aang raise a few posts up at the Northern Air Temple. Sokka has been enjoying his travels, but feeling lonely, too; he’s happy to have learned so much about himself and the world around him, but also happy to be back somewhere familiar.

Zuko, in response, tells Sokka: “Things are fine.”

“Is that all,” Sokka wonders rhetorically, and Zuko grunts an affirmative. “Because I heard something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.”

Zuko stiffens. What could have possibly made it all the way to the newspapers of the Earth Kingdom? Is it the excruciating negotiations between hard-headed council members and justifiably angry union members, or perhaps the collapse of the northern economy, or maybe it’s Zuko’s unhealthy reliance on the Avatar’s goodwill for the irrigation project in the west? What evidence of Zuko’s failures as a leader is Sokka going to ask about? He’ll be gentle, of course, perhaps even offer his help, but Zuko will know that he’s failed to keep his problems away from his friends even when they’re oceans away from him.

“I heard you were poisoned,” Sokka continues.

“Ah,” he says. Zuko hasn’t thought about it in months, not since Zuko released Pizin’s body to his family, who had denounced his treason so fervently Zuko had looked away. They’d said, _He’s a traitor to our nation_ , and Zuko had wondered if it was the crown on his head that made them believe they had to be so forceful, so unequivocal. He hadn’t said _I’m sorry_ , but he’d wanted to.

And then Zuko realizes, “That was a year ago.” He only recalls it as he says it, but it’s there, the thing he left out of his unanswered letter: Sokka was here for the ambassadorial dinner, not two months after the assassination attempt.

“I know,” Sokka grits out, and Zuko watches him throw back his sake. Sokka won’t look him in the eyes. “I know I was here what, a couple of months after it happened? I don’t know how— Zuko, you have to understand, _no one_ heard about it. I only know about it now because Aang mentioned it, and the way he said it, like it wasn’t— like it wasn’t even a big deal— Zuko, if I’d known—”

“Sokka,” Zuko chides, because his point wasn’t to make Sokka feel bad for the fraying political ends of Zuko’s country. “It’s _not_ a big deal.”

“You almost died,” Sokka forces out, quietly, like it hurts. “I would have been here. You have to know that, Zuko. I would’ve _been here_ if I’d known about it.”

“That’s not your job,” Zuko says stiffly. He doesn’t add the rest of the truth, which is that he wouldn’t have wanted Sokka to see him like that — barely able to stomach food, deep bags under his eyes, snapping at his ministers, unable to hold a conversation for longer than ten minutes. That’s not the Zuko his friends deserve.

“But it’s what I want to do,” Sokka says, hands gripping Zuko’s. “That’s— dude, that’s what friends do. That’s what friends are _for_.”

“Well.” Zuko rubs his thumb thoughtfully over Sokka’s hand, lips twitching upwards. “Next time, then.”

“That’s not funny,” Sokka protests, but he’s smiling. “Zuko, I’m serious.”

“I’ll tell the next assassin to wait for you to visit,” Zuko says, releasing Sokka’s hands to get a sponge cake. “But. Thank you.”

Sokka shakes his head. “I’m worried about you,” he says, but his voice is lighter than it was before. “You’ve got a lot on your plate. I mean, literally, but also figuratively.”

Zuko rolls his eyes. “You’ve put away more food tonight than I have all day, asshole.”

“My point was your unsustainable dedication to burning yourself out, but okay, yeah,” Sokka responds.

Zuko sighs. “I’m trying not to think about it,” he admits.

“Okay,” Sokka says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean… I mean, I’m down for that. Let’s do that. Take a break.”

They clink their glasses, down another shot of sake each, and that’s how their night starts.

* * *

“—so literally all of the Kyoshi warriors are just shoving their feet in my direction, bullying me because according to them I have _tiny shoes_ ,” Sokka is saying. “I have perfectly normal sized feet! It’s not my fault everybody in the Earth Kingdom has like, huge soles to connect to the ground or whatever!”

“Right,” Zuko laughs, tossing back more of his drink. It’s nice to be able to relax like this, he thinks, even if it’s only possible through the guise of diplomatic negotiation.

Sokka slouches on the couch, head over the armrest and one of his feet propped up over the back of the couch, legs akimbo and incredibly distracting. “So I wanted to ask,” he starts, and then promptly spills his drink all over his face by trying to drink it while lying down.

“ _Spirits_ , Sokka,” Zuko snorts, standing up to find a rag. “You’re a disaster.”

“Mflegh—” Sokka says, eloquently, and then hacks sake out of his nose. Zuko drops an old shirt on his face, and Sokka rubs his face with it before tossing it to the ground. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Zuko says seriously, sitting down on the floor so his head is next to Sokka’s. Sly, he adds: “Small feet.”

“Hey—!” Sokka hurls upwards to point his finger in Zuko’s face. “You’re trying to get a rise out of me. I see what’s going on here.”

“Yes, but I see now that you’re far too even-tempered for that to work,” Zuko sighs. He watches Sokka’s eyebrows twitch, and then finally lets himself smile.

“Mean,” Sokka mutters, lying back down on the couch. “And uncalled for.”

“My deepest apologies, Ambassador Sokka.” Zuko pours him another glass of sake in compensation, which seems to mollify him, although he doesn’t risk drinking while lying down again. Zuko downs the rest of his own drink before saying, “So, you wanted to ask me something?”

Sokka grows more serious. “Yeah,” he says, and Zuko starts to wonder if he should’ve taken the out, rather than bringing it up. “I, ah. Don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Hard to take it the right way when you won’t just say it,” Zuko retorts. Fortunately, he’s too drunk to be really worried, but he can feel it pressing in at the edges of his mind. What does Sokka want to ask?

“I kinda, uh.” Sokka laughs. “It’s embarrassing. I don’t want you to think— I mean. I’m not _mad_.”

“Sokka.”

“Your letter was really short.” Sokka sits up and scrubs a hand over his face. “Okay? That’s it. I felt… I can’t remember exactly what I wrote, but it was personal, and then you— so I thought, you were being kind about it. About not being interested. And I wasn’t gonna say anything, but then I heard about the assassination attempt and I couldn’t— I had to _ask_.”

“What?” Zuko’s eyes are wide as he looks up at Sokka. “What are you— _what_?”

“‘If you find someone else to join you in watching the sunset in the mountains, feel free to share it with them instead,’” Sokka recites. “That’s what you wrote. So I figured— you were trying to let me down easy. I swear, I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but I realized I couldn’t— you could’ve _died_ , and I wanted a real answer.”

“Let you down easy,” Zuko repeats, mouth numb. He feels too drunk for this, disoriented and dizzy, something like a headache coming on, maybe, except it feels too much for that, too big. A whole body ache, concentrated in his chest. “I didn’t— Sokka. I wasn’t trying to— I didn’t even _know_ —”

“Never mind,” Sokka laughs, stress audible in the hitch of his breath. “It’s not a big deal.”

Zuko reaches out to grip Sokka’s knee. “Sokka—”

“Don’t—” Sokka jerks, and Zuko lets go of him instantly. Sokka shakes his head. “Can we pretend I didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t mean to overstep,” Zuko says hastily. His mind replays Sokka’s instinctive flinch, the way he had said _Don’t_ like that, urgent and quick. Zuko did that to him. “I apologize.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sokka says.

Zuko is starting to realize that it’s possible Sokka may leave this conversation with the incredibly false impression that Zuko is— that Zuko is _uninterested_ in him. That Zuko doesn’t want him.

And yet. Wouldn’t that be the best possible outcome? Sokka can move on, and Zuko can forget about his impossible fantasy of spending the rest of his life with Sokka.

He can’t bring himself to tell Sokka no, though. He doesn’t think he ever could. So he takes the coward’s way out. “I think I’m drunk,” he says, which is true enough, but normally would be nothing to remark on.

Sokka takes the hint. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll— me, too, I should head out.” He throws back the sake that’s been sitting on the side table, waiting for him. “Thank you, Zuko. This was fun.”

“Yes,” Zuko says, stupidly, and shuffles Sokka out the door in a daze.

He hits his bed and passes out, with barely enough time to wonder what Sokka will think of him in the morning.

* * *

“Lani,” barks a taut voice. “Assessment.”

A beautiful woman — so beautiful, her voice tinkling like seashells — sighs expansively. “It didn’t work,” she says quietly. “The Fire Lord was too busy with his friends, the other ambassadors. I’ve made some contacts in the palace since the dinner, but it’s slow.” She laughs bitterly. “The palace staff seem to like their new Fire Lord.”

“Hm.” The voice is accompanied by nervous tapping of fingers on a desk. “Well. Efforts continue. You should know that the leadership is aiming to move in two months.”

Leilani sucks in a sharp breath. “That’s so soon—”

“I’m reassigning you to weapons.” The voice softens. “It’s not a demotion. It’s just where our priorities need to be.”

“I understand.” After a hesitant breath, Leilani asks, quietly, “Do you think it’ll work?”

“The people will see what’s right for them when the time comes,” the voice replies. “I’m certain of it.”

* * *

In the time after Sokka’s arrival, hostility in the palace starts to grow. Zuko hadn’t realized how much of a difference just one sympathetic council member made, but ever since Pek retreated to the research wing and started avoiding main council meetings, Zuko’s tenuous grip on authority has dwindled. Or perhaps it’s the state of the country outside of his palace, the clashes between the Ozai sympathizers and the people’s movements that Zuko hears about through Heda and the kitchen staff. _Some people aren’t pleased about the law_ , one of his secretaries had said quietly, face downturned.

 _And what do you think?_ Zuko had asked.

She’d smiled, and finally looked up at him. _I’m glad to be working for the right side_ , she’d said, and Zuko had smiled back, and had wondered if it really meant anything to be on one side or another.

He misses his uncle. He misses having someone to steer him correct, even if he ignored Uncle’s advice half the time. Uncle would know what to do about Councillor Kenai sneering at him during meetings, about Iping outright falsifying reports on the status of the demilitarization project and Peng abandoning the healthcare project out of spite. _Fire Lord Zuko_ , Peng had said once, _I can’t make money and policy come out of thin air. These things take time_. And Zuko — who had been asking about the possibility of emergency care for children in distress — had realized that no one in his government was on his side, for whatever value Zuko’s side held.

* * *

The search for a precedent for his proposal to give more autonomy to local governing bodies leads Zuko to the library. He never spent much time in the library before his reign; members of the royal family are supposed to spend their teens conducting historical surveys of the Fire Nation, but Zuko, well. He’d been on a boat.

He doesn’t end up finding any evidence of alternative governing structures in the Fire Nation’s past, but he does find Sokka sprawled across a chair holding a book above his face. “Hey.”

“Zuko,” Sokka says, setting the book on his chest. “This place is wild.”

“I didn’t know you spent a lot of time in the library.” Zuko sits, cross-legged, on the floor next to Sokka’s chair. “What’re you reading?”

“I read!” Sokka squawks, and then adds, “You know, just trying to be a good ambassador, read up on other cultures.” Sokka waves his book in Zuko’s face. “This, though. This is nonsense.”

Zuko cranes his head to the side to read the title. _The Water Tribe Peasantry_. “Oh no,” Zuko whispers, completely involuntarily.

“‘The people of the Water Tribe have strange rituals,’” Sokka reads in a nasal, snooty accent. Zuko buries his face in his hands. ‘“They pierce their ears. Some say that this serves to make them more fearsome to their prey, as they hunt with their bare hands. The men of the Water Tribe are violent, which is acceptable to their people because of their harsh living conditions.’ The whole book is like this, Zuko!”

“Please let me burn it,” Zuko says into his palms.

“No, no, it’s great,” Sokka laughs. “They have a whole section on how we apparently fuck seals, so it’s not like I’m taking any of it seriously.”

Zuko shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to read that trash. It’s—” Cruel and racist. Unfounded propaganda. Filth.

He feels Sokka’s hand pat his head. “It’s fine. I knew what I was getting into.” Zuko looks up at Sokka, whose fingers shift to card through his hair. He bites his lip, and Sokka seems to shake himself, pulling his hand back.

The quiet rests for a moment, Sokka’s hand resting on his stomach. He looks away from Zuko. “Do you wanna know the real reason we pierce our ears?”

Zuko slides forward, sets his hand on Sokka’s arm. Sokka’s laughing it off, but no one should have to read lies about their people, themselves, without a friend. “Yeah.”

He catches a hint of a smile on Sokka’s face. “Firstly, it’s beautiful,” Sokka starts, and Zuko’s hand tightens briefly. It is. He watches the varnished studs in Sokka’s ear reflect the light as his head moves. “It marks you as an adult. Not everyone gets their ears pierced, obviously, but it’s… it’s a way to have our culture on us, when we’re old enough to choose what we want to represent. It's a way to recognize each other. When I was little, sometimes we’d still get visitors from other tribes in the south, and they’d all have different piercings. You could tell where they were from just because of that.” Sokka’s smile turns to a grimace, and he looks up, blinking fast. “There weren’t many people with pierced ears by the time I turned thirteen. Gran Gran wouldn’t do it, said I was too little. Sometimes I wish—”

Sokka swallows heavily. Zuko sets his forehead against Sokka’s forearm, next to his own hand. “What do you wish, Sokka?”

“I wish I had them pierced, before we found Aang,” Sokka whispers. “Not that— I mean, Gran Gran was right, that I was too young. I just I wish I could’ve brought my culture with me, everywhere we went.”

Zuko thinks of a thirteen year old Sokka, asking his grandmother to put a needle in his ears because he thought he was grown. He thinks of a fifteen year old Sokka defending his village when Zuko’s ship arrived at that ice shelf. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

“No, that’s— you don’t have to apologize—”

“I don’t mean—” Zuko huffs out a breath. He’s not apologizing on behalf of the _Fire Nation_. He tries, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just. I’m sorry you didn’t get to have that. I’m sorry it was taken from you.”

“Thanks.” Sokka’s hand comes to cover Zuko’s. They breathe together, for a long moment that stretches across two, three, four breaths.

“Let me find a book for you,” Zuko says, standing up. “Stay here.”

He stalks down the rows of bookshelves, looking for the slim novella he’d once picked up by chance and kept with him for months. He spots the gold leaf on the red spine: _In Memory_.

“Found it,” Zuko says once he gets back to Sokka. He hands him the book and then becomes abruptly self-conscious. “It’s, uh. It’s a folk tale, but— it’s more than that. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Sokka turns it over in his hands. “ _In Memory_ , huh. In memory of what?”

“Joy,” Zuko says hoarsely, and then looks away when Sokka turns to him. “Our past. The Fire Nation’s past, I mean. It’s about— I don’t know how it wasn’t banned. It’s about our language, and our stories, from before Sozin.”

Sokka opens it up to the first page. “‘The first to remember anything was the sun,’” he reads. “‘At the end of the first day, the sun travelled many oceans and mountains to enter the spirit world and was tethered by nothing but the moon. Still, the sun remembered the way back to the living world, and remembers every day.’”

“Are you going to read the whole thing?” Zuko asks, settling back down on the floor.

“Eventually, yeah,” Sokka says. “You want me to read it aloud?”

“If you want to,” Zuko says, shrugging. “I could get my own book, though, if you don’t want to. Or, I probably have something else I should be doing right now.”

“Let me read to you,” Sokka says firmly, opening the book back up. Zuko rests his head against the chair cushion. “‘I remember the sun. Many hundreds of years ago, all we had were the sun and water. We grew rice in small mountain paddies, and so our food was from the sun. Our speech also came from the sun. The first words ever spoken were in conversation with the sun, who was lonely without the moon.’” Sokka laughs gently. “I like it so far, man.”

“I’m glad,” Zuko says, drowsy from the soft light and Sokka’s voice.

Sokka’s hand comes back up to his hair again, tentatively at first, before Zuko leans into it. Sokka’s thumb moves through his hair, and Zuko closes his eyes. Sokka continues, “‘For centuries, the people were like this, eating and speaking thanks to the sun. We always remembered that our life came from the first to have memory. We knew the importance of history.’”

Zuko smiles as Sokka’s hand moves gently against his scalp, soothed by Sokka’s warm voice.

* * *

Sokka, Zuko realizes, is a bully.

“If you don’t come with me to Ba Sing Se, I’ll start a revolution,” Sokka says. He’s lying across Zuko’s bed, because he has decided that what’s Zuko’s is his, and Zuko is helpless to resist. “I’m serious. Ba Sing Se, next month. We’ll visit your uncle and see if Toph’s free.”

“I can’t just—”

“A revolt!” Sokka backrolls into a crouch on the ground, boomerang at the ready. “I’ll knock you out and drag you there myself if I have to.”

Zuko rolls his eyes. “I’m being oppressed.”

“Hilarious.” Sokka pokes Zuko in the knee with his boomerang. “Seriously. Ba Sing Se. Make it happen, Fire Lord.”

Sokka might be a bully, or maybe it’s just that Zuko is a pushover when it comes to his friends. And, he might actually die if he doesn’t get a break. _And_ , even if he won’t admit it to himself for fear of losing his motivation to rule, he misses his uncle. “Yeah,” he says, thinking about how he’ll sell it to his secretary. “Okay.”

* * *

“Nephew!” Uncle pulls him into a deep hug, and Zuko realizes he hasn’t seen his uncle in two years.

Zuko doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. Uncle will know what he means anyway. In the interminable stretch of time between Zuko’s coronation and this moment, Uncle has shrunk — or, Zuko has grown. The idea that Uncle might have changed without Zuko there to see it is a terrifying reminder of his mortality, but he smells the same, at least. He smells like jasmine tea and sesame oil, like family.

“I missed you, Zuko,” Uncle says quietly, and Zuko realizes he is crying into Uncle’s shirt.

“Uncle,” Zuko says stiffly, pulling back to scrub away his tears. “You, uh, you remember Sokka.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure the old man remembers me.” Sokka cuts in to be squeezed within an inch of his life by Zuko’s uncle. “Missed you, Uncle Iroh.”

“As I missed you.” Uncle claps Sokka on the back as he releases him. “You know you are welcome anytime.” He fixes an eye on Zuko. “Both of you.”

“Yes, Uncle,” Zuko replies. They follow Uncle into his apartment above the tea shop. “Your apartment looks very nice.”

It does. The walls are covered with hanging tapestries in both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom styles. Zuko leans forward consideringly to examine one of them. The red edges of the tapestry curl inward like flames, framing the scene: two horses, painstakingly picked out in gold and chestnut threads, nosing up at a lush apple tree. The whole tapestry is covered with gold and yellow-green leaves, small blossoms of a flower Zuko can’t recognize nestled at their roots. And, so small Zuko had barely noticed it at first, the crumbling ruin of an old city.

“An excellent choice for study, Zuko,” Uncle says from behind him. Zuko jumps. He realizes that Sokka’s helped Uncle set up the teapot, reached up to his highest cabinets for his nicest tea, while Zuko has been — what? Daydreaming about a pretty picture?

Before he can excuse himself, Uncle sets a hand on Zuko’s shoulder, and Zuko settles. “I paid far too much money for this tapestry. I have always loved the idea behind it. What do you think of it?”

Zuko looks at the horses, discomfited by the ruined city that seems to distort the rest of the image with its weight, a strange warping sensation that follows Zuko no matter where he looks. “It’s beautiful,” he says, which is not precisely a lie, even if he’d rather look away.

“I have spent many hours studying this tapestry. A retired man must have his hobbies.” In silence, the two of them look at the tapestry together. “I read it as freedom. The horses are no longer shackled by their masters. Instead, they have found a beautiful orchard to sustain them.”

Zuko nods. His discomfort must be visible, though, because Uncle chuckles. “I suppose it must look much more like disaster to a young man who lives in a city.”

Eventually, Zuko tries, “Destruction isn’t the only way to make change.” It’s not the critique he sits with in his heart, but it’s palatable for Uncle. Zuko isn’t sure how to gracefully articulate the truth of it: that the horses have abandoned their responsibilities, left like cowards, fleeing the site of disaster to gorge themselves on sweet fruit.

“Why do I feel like I’m listening to the art criticism section of the _Ba Sing Se Times_?” Sokka asks from behind them, and Zuko laughs, broken out of his spell. “Tea?”

“Sure.” Zuko goes to prepare the food they’d brought with them as Sokka sets the cups out.

Over lunch, Uncle regales them with tales of his most ridiculous customers, while Sokka tells them about his time backpacking across the world. Eventually, inevitably, the conversation turns to the political situation of the Fire Nation.

“It is so good to hear that things have been going well with your work as Fire Lord,” Uncle says. A sudden knot forms in Zuko’s stomach; he nods listlessly, pushing his noodles around his plate. It always feels bad to lie to Uncle, even by omission. “Sometimes I hear worrying things in the shop, but I know you would tell me in your letters if anything serious happened.”

“Ye—ah.” Zuko puts his chopsticks down. He steels himself, and then— he picks his chopsticks back up and shoves noodles in his mouth to stop himself from speaking. He shouldn’t burden Uncle with something like this. With worries that have no end, no solution. There’s no advice Uncle can give him that will make him less of an assassination target, or less worried about the future, and it’s not Uncle’s job to advise him on the minutiae he could actually use help with.

“From what I hear, things have actually been going pretty good except for the assassination attempt,” Sokka says casually, shoveling food into his mouth. “Have you heard of any Ozai apologists out here in the Earth Kingdom? I haven’t told Zuko about it yet — so, uh, Zuko, now you know! — but I’ve kinda taken the investigation on as a personal project.”

Uncle puts his chopsticks down, and Zuko winces. “No, I haven’t heard anything about that,” he says quietly, looking at Zuko. Zuko’s gaze skitters away, looking at Uncle’s hands instead of his face. Uncle would never burn him, not when he could simply turn away and hurt Zuko worse than any fire. “Zuko, you didn’t tell me you were in danger.”

“It was handled,” Zuko says tightly, looking down at his own plate. And then, to Sokka, “You didn’t tell me you were looking into it. You know Pizin was arrested, right?”

“Guys like that always have a bigger plan,” Sokka says. He’s serious, but easy about it in a way that Zuko can’t fathom. “I’m just keeping an eye out, making sure no one’s trying to plan a second attempt.”

“I’m very grateful my nephew has you to protect him.” Uncle pours Sokka more tea. Zuko sees his hands trembling.

“Let me help you,” Zuko says, leaning over to help Uncle set the teapot down gently on the surface of the table.

Uncle laughs, once, before his smile fades away. “Look at how quick you are to support others. Do you think you must carry every burden yourself, Zuko?”

“Life is not a teapot,” Zuko mutters.

“Still.” Uncle breathes, the steam from his tea following his breath in a way he was never able to allow during the war. “I have already lost one son, Zuko. Tell me I won’t lose another.”

Zuko flinches. He can’t make himself move his hands, can’t eat or drink tea or do anything that would conceal how absolutely wrecked he is by the reminder of Lu Ten. He sits there like a hunk of crumbling soapstone, immobile, useless, looking at the table in front of him so he doesn’t have to see Uncle’s face.

“He has a good guard,” Sokka says carefully, after waiting for Zuko to respond. “They keep him safe. And the situation really isn’t as bad as it was at first.”

“That is good to hear,” Uncle says, sipping his tea. And then he says: “Zuko. You must know I am not angry with you.”

Zuko hunches over, and finds himself to be crying. “I’m sorry, Uncle,” he rasps, scrubbing his eyes. Pathetic. “I should have told you. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

“It is always the burden of the older generation to worry for the younger,” Uncle says. Zuko looks up and sees that he’s smiling. “A burden you cannot lift from me, because it comes from love.”

Zuko nods. “Thank you, Uncle,” he says softly, and Uncle turns to Sokka to ask about the situation in the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko settles into himself, and enjoys the rest of their lunch.

* * *

On the train from the Jasmine Dragon, Zuko slumps into the back of his seat. “That was—” He swallows, scratching the back of his neck. “Uh. Nice.”

Sokka grins. “Don’t hurt yourself, buddy.” He pulls at Zuko until he slides sideways into Sokka, head nestled under his arm. More seriously, Sokka adds, “I’m glad you got to see your uncle.”

“I forgot how much I miss him,” Zuko admits, closing his eyes, getting comfortable.

“Yeah.” Sokka’s hand settles on Zuko’s upper arm, warm through the fabric of his sleeve. He smells like pine, maybe some kind of perfume or oil from a northwestern Earth Kingdom trader. “Can—” Sokka huffs out a breath, something close to a laugh. “Can I tell you something?”

Zuko nods. “Should I—” He starts to push himself out from Sokka’s side, but Sokka’s arm tightens around his shoulders, just enough to keep Zuko in place.

“No, no, it’s.” Zuko counts his breaths as he waits during Sokka’s pause. Three inhales, three exhales. On the fourth new breath, Sokka says softly, “I’m sorry I didn’t write back to you.”

“My letter didn’t exactly encourage a response,” Zuko chuckles. Now, tonight, in an empty train car with Sokka holding him like a lover, his months of languishing in desperate wait for a letter are laughable. What is ten months to this, the closest Zuko has come to intimacy since Sokka left? Zuko would wait ten years.

“I should’ve.” Sokka’s hand tightens around Zuko’s arm. His voice dips, serious, and Zuko tries to focus. “No matter what you wrote, you’re my friend. You deserved a reply. And especially with the news— they’re calling it the New Proclamation, capital letters and everything, what you did to Sozin’s law about people like us.”

 _People like us_. Every part of that — that they’re calling it the New Proclamation, the fact that Sokka’s heard about it, that Sokka said _people like us_ — is overwhelming. “So you heard about it.”

“I was up in the Northern Water Tribe when the ambassadors got the news,” Sokka says. “Most of them were supportive. Some of the old guys, you know how they are with stuff like this.”

“Sure.” Zuko doesn’t know, actually. He doesn’t know anything about Sokka’s culture; it’s another loss to come out of his position as the Fire Lord.

“Anyway.” Sokka starts to pet Zuko’s arm, long, soothing strokes that feel unbearably tender. “That was brave of you. Dangerous, but brave.”

“I haven’t been assassinated yet.”

Sharply, Sokka says, “That’s not where the bar should be. That shouldn’t even be— it shouldn’t be on the floor at all. The bar should be on the balcony above assassination.”

“Your metaphor is fucked.”

“I’ll get _you_ fucked if you don’t shut up.” Zuko holds his breath as Sokka snorts quietly. “Hah. Uh—”

Zuko tilts his chin up to meet Sokka’s gaze. Low, he asks, “Is that so?”

Sokka’s eyes flick undeniably to Zuko’s mouth. Zuko wonders if he’s remembering their last time together. He’d thought it was something that only he had cared to remember, that perhaps it was nothing special to Sokka, but the way he’s looking now— like he’s thinking of it, the way he’d put his mouth against Zuko’s throat, teeth against the line of his jaw—

One long, breathless moment passes between them. Zuko almost thinks Sokka’s going to kiss him, right there on the train, but Sokka’s hand flexes on Zuko’s shoulder, jarring him out of their shared gaze. Zuko drops his eyes, and then, feeling like an idiot, settles back into his side embrace.

“I just wanna take care of you,” Sokka says hoarsely, mouth pressed against Zuko’s hair, and Zuko shivers. “You do so much by yourself.”

“I didn’t exactly pull my weight during the war,” Zuko says. “Just making up for lost time.”

“For you, or for your whole bloodline?” Before Zuko can reply, Sokka brings his hand up to Zuko’s shoulder, spanning his neck, thumb brushing against his jaw. Zuko’s eyes rest on the other empty bench across from them, feeling so sheltered, so warm, even with the direction their conversation has taken. “You’re not supposed to fix it all alone.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Zuko inhales deeply, and then sinks further into Sokka’s side. Sokka’s hand is warm, his arm solid around Zuko’s shoulders; Zuko, for once, feels safe.

* * *

Like Ba Sing Se’s train, like the walls of the great city, lines of people crowd forest trails on the other side of the world. The masses move in droves from one town to another, passing through mountains like badgermoles.

“Nia,” a man says, handing her a sword. His voice drops lower. “Our neighbors might be right. The Fire Lord has never been someone to put your faith in.”

“No, but—” Nia thinks of her daughter, still at home with her auntie. The wave of demilitarization has reached her province; her daughter’s first appointment with a local doctor was last week. “He made change. The old way didn’t serve us. The new way won’t serve us either, not unless we fight for it.”

The man polishes his saddle. The northern mountain forests of the Fire Nation are dark at night, thick branches and dark leaves blocking even the starlight. “Is it even real? They whisper about a coup, spread rumors, but… it could be nothing.” He stops moving, a motionless shadow among the rustling trees. Nia watches his head bow. “I don’t want—” His breath shudders. “I’m just— so tired of war.”

Nia puts her hand on his shoulder. A friend, even if they only met two hours ago, preparing their transport for first light. They are bound to each other through their struggle. “War is coming to us,” she says fiercely. “We didn’t start it. It is coming from our landlords, our masters. From everyone who ate up the evils of war, who thought they tasted good. We must fight, no matter how tired we are.”

The man nods. Nia turns back to their supplies, sword resting on her hip. “Light soon,” he says, and Nia works faster.

* * *

The overhead threat of violence from the war has been long gone, but in its place is a sort of tautness in the air, the collective anticipation before a symphony, a stage play, a spectacle. Zuko is safely ensconced with Sokka in his curtained kalesa, but he still feels on display. He is thirteen again, at his father’s feet.

“You doing okay?”

“Fine.” Zuko glares down at his knees, unwilling to turn his ire on Sokka but unable to calm down, either. They only have another day of travel in the Earth Kingdom before they board the boat back to the Fire Nation capital. Zuko’s not sure if his nerves are from the real tension in the Fire Nation colonies, still negotiated over by board members and cabinet ministers, or if he’s just somehow transmuted his melancholy from the end of this vacation into vague apprehension.

Sokka puts his palm on Zuko’s knee. Zuko touches the back of his hand, turning it over so that he can lace their fingers together. He looks up, and realizes that Sokka’s looking at him.

“Seriously. How are you feeling?” Sokka’s voice is low, gentle, appropriate for their secluded carriage.

Zuko wonders. He’s grateful to have seen his uncle. Angry at the slowness of the colony talks. Sad that he’ll be returning to his lonely palace soon, and guilty for his sadness. Zuko wishes he knew more words about emotion, had the vocabulary to articulate himself to Sokka. _I’m sad-angry_ , he imagines himself saying, some unbearably trivial attempt at communication.

Zuko’s about to respond when the distant roar of voices carries through the curtains.

“Tui and _La_ ,” Sokka gripes, pulling his warmth away from Zuko as he pushes out of their moving kalesa. Seconds later, the driver pulls it to a stop before the growing mass of people in the road.

“We have demands!” says one of the people in the crowd, launching into a speech before Zuko can react. “We, the colonies, want government representation in the Fire Nation palace. We want a share of the subsidies the north is getting.”

“We don’t want that!” someone else in the crowd yells. “We want Fire Nation scum off our land!”

Zuko watches, stunned, as a furious whisper starts up in the crowd. As he descends from the kalesa, Sokka turns to him, and asks, voice low, “Don’t they get it? You’re already changing things. If they’d just _wait_ —”

“How much longer are they supposed to wait?” Zuko hisses back, nerves boiling into unjustified exasperation. These people — _their_ people, Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike — are fighting over a scrap of coast that the Earth King hasn’t mentioned once in their negotiations. “It’s not enough for them. How could it be? Sokka, just _think_.”

“I _am_ thinking! If you’re under the impression that I’m inclined to just give the Fire Nation a free pass then guess again, buddy,” Sokka spits back. Zuko flinches. That wasn’t— and yet, he’d said it, hadn’t he? Pushed Sokka to sympathize with the crowd as though he wasn’t one of them, as though Zuko wasn’t the enemy. Sokka sighs. Gentler, he adds, “I really am thinking, Zuko. I’m thinking you’re the best we’re ever gonna get, by a long shot.”

That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. Not exactly the _I’m glad it’s you on that throne today_ that Sokka gave him the morning of his coronation. Feeling cold, Zuko turns back to the person who first spoke. “What do you want? Do you have a list of demands?”

“Food!” someone at the back of the crowd yells. “To feed my family!”

“Clean drinking water!”

“No more rent!”

The calls push forward along with the crowd like a great dragon, lifted by ten people at once. Someone cries _No justice, no peace!_ , barely audible in the din at first, until it’s picked up by two, three, ten, fifty other people, the whole crowd at once, screaming for it. _Justice!_

“Zuko,” Sokka whispers, “we need to go, before things get—”

“We’ll have a meeting here,” Zuko says to the crowd. “Give me your concerns. Let me take them to the capital.”

From the looks of it, no one seems to be part of any organization, except for the small group of warriors patrolling the edge of the crowd. One of them stalks up to Zuko.

Because the spirits have a sense of humor, the warrior is wearing a Blue Spirit mask.

“We want autonomy,” the Blue Spirit says, voice gritty. “We want a government, and we want fifty years of land rent back paid to our government. We want to own our own natural resources, and to create our own laws.”

Zuko wonders. It’s feasible, possibly — there’s enough steel and rice produced in the Fire Nation to keep his cities built and his citizens fed without extracting resources from the colonies, if the last estimates are correct, and if they continue to downsize their manufacturing plants. “How do you make decisions here?” he asks. “Do you vote? Do you come up with a consensus? This can happen, if it’s what your people want.”

The warrior nods sharply. “We’ll be ready for a meeting in two days. We’ll speak on our own behalf, but we’re organized across all the colonies. Stay in town, and I’ll hold you to your word, Fire Lord.” They offer up a hand to shake, but the other clenches on their sword, and Zuko thinks he might not win a fight against this person.

“I’ve been down this road with Jet,” Sokka says, which is such a convergence of feelings that Zuko goes a little cross-eyed. “You can’t start negotiating with terrorists—”

“You were a terrorist, and you won the war.”

“Oh.” Sokka nods consideringly. “Huh. True.”

Zuko shakes the warrior’s hand, and so negotiations begin.

* * *

“Do you ever think about it,” Zuko says one day, weeks after they return to the Fire Nation capital with the beginnings of a plan for the colonies and two representatives from the Earth Kingdom’s western coast to add to his economics committee. He meant it as a question, but it comes out of his mouth tonelessly.

“Huh?” Sokka asks. Zuko assumes that Sokka’s looking up from his position at the desk, but Zuko keeps his eyes fixed forward on the city. “Are you seriously brooding on your balcony right now? You know we have to finish, like, all of these reports by the end of the week.”

“Before,” Zuko clarifies, rubbing his face. “When I was chasing you. Do you ever think about that?”

There’s a pause, and then the scrape of his desk chair. “Sometimes, yeah,” Sokka says, and Zuko can hear him walking up behind him. “What brought this on?”

“No one is on my side,” Zuko says softly, and then hastily corrects himself. “Our side, I mean. It’s been almost two years, and they’re still— most of them are still the same people who served under Ozai.”

Sokka waits. “Yeah. I know that. Is it— what are you thinking right now?”

“There’s so much work to do,” he says, voice cracking. “Do people know that I want it to change? Do _you_ know? It must look— it must look like we’re doing nothing. Like I don’t give a fuck about any of it.”

“It doesn’t look like that at all—”

“You said to me, once, that you needed me to be a good Fire Lord,” Zuko says, all of it spilling out of him. “I’m— I want you to know that when you say things like that to me, I hear it. I hear you.”

“I know that.” Sokka steps forward, into Zuko’s line of sight. He turns his head, and Sokka puts his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “I mean, I don’t know what I meant when I said that. But right now, I know that I need you to take care of yourself. I need you to be safe so you can do your work.” His hand is heavy on Zuko’s shoulder. “I didn’t expect it to be like this. But I don’t blame you for it, Zuko.”

“Maybe you should.” Zuko worries at his fingers, knuckles twisting against each other. “It was supposed to be fixed. I was supposed to fix it.”

“Well, that’s your problem right there,” Sokka says heartily, taking the hand off Zuko’s shoulder to clap him on the back. “You’re not supposed to do it all by yourself, Fire Lord Grumpy.”

“Who else is there?” Zuko looks at Sokka. “Tell me. Who else is there to do this work?”

Sokka looks at Zuko like he’s crazy. “Zuko. Who did we bring back with us from the Earth Kingdom?” He shakes his shoulder. “Your _people_ , Zuko. The people will do this work, if you just let them.”

“I— I don’t—” _I don’t know how to do that_ , Zuko thinks, but it’s not that, not really. It’s that he doesn’t know what he’s allowed to ask for, or he’s not sure if government representation is where people feel the need to put their energy, or maybe it’s panic at the reports his political committee keeps spitting at him. Clashes in the north, roaming armed bandits from the now-disbanded provincial militia, the odd Ozai-sympathetic publication in the east. It feels like it’s all collapsing again, and Zuko doesn’t know the way through now that there’s no clear-cut enemy, no easy protagonist.

“Okay, that’s it.” Sokka steers Zuko back into the room, shoving him into some nondescript black robes over Zuko’s confused protests. “We’re going out. It’s nighttime, nobody’s gonna recognize you. We’re going to spend time with your people.”

“That— what—” Zuko stumbles over a slipper as Sokka kneels down to shove some shoes on him, and Zuko pushes him away. “We just got back! What are you _doing_?”

Sokka presses his forehead against Zuko’s thigh out of sheer frustration, it looks like. “I want to go out, just for tonight,” he says. “Can that be enough? Can we go out?”

Zuko drags his hand down his face. “Yeah. Okay, yeah.” He puts on his sandals, and lets Sokka sneak him out of the palace.

* * *

“Sometimes I worry about my dad,” Sokka says, halfway through his third glass of rice wine, thigh pressed close against Zuko’s. Sometimes, Sokka’s foot will slip off the barstool’s footrest and nudge Zuko’s, and he’ll catch himself with a hand against Zuko’s upper arm. “I mean. He’s got it handled, don’t— he’s a great chief, a great dad. You know that.”

“I have a lot of respect for your father,” Zuko says carefully. It’s not a lie, of course, but he— Sokka clearly has a point, and Zuko wants him to get to it.

“‘S just a big world now.” Sokka sets his hand purposefully on Zuko’s forearm, heat bleeding through Zuko’s robes. The bartender undoubtedly knows who he is, but no one else has looked their way, which is good enough for Zuko. “I’m worried about everyone down at the South Pole. And Katara’s with Aang up at the Northern Air Temple right now, so he’s all by himself.”

“He’s got Bato, right?”

“Yeah, true,” Sokka concedes. He taps his fingers against his glass. “I’m just saying. It’s a big job, leading a people. It’s important that he has someone by his side.”

“I’m certain he’s up for the task.”

“Zuko.” Sokka buries his head in his arms. Muffled, he says, “I’m trying to— this is a metaphor. Uh. A comparison. A simile?”

“What are you talking about?” Zuko pokes Sokka’s shaved head, the undercut that always stirs him to distraction. “Sokka. _Sokka_.”

“It’s you,” Sokka says miserably. “You’re my dad.”

Zuko doesn’t bother to answer; he just finishes his drink. He’s way too sober to deal with this. “Sokka. Truly, what the fuck?”

“I _am_ actually worried about my dad,” Sokka clarifies. Zuko is fairly certain that didn’t clear anything up at all. Zuko contemplates a fourth glass of wine. “But what I mean is, when I leave, you’ll be all by yourself.”

“I know it shouldn’t be me,” Zuko says, because he’s not sure what Sokka’s trying to say and his fear feels like it’s pushing out of his mouth. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. But I’m— I have the councillors, and I can’t get rid of them because otherwise it really will just be me and that’s not okay, I know it’s not—”

“You are so—” Sokka grabs Zuko’s hand, thumbs over Zuko’s fingertips like he’s holding something precious, something beautiful and important. “I’m saying that you’re not supposed to do it all by yourself. You need actual allies with you — actual people, _your_ people, not your dad’s old— old— whatever they’re called, you know what I mean.”

Zuko nods. The word _councillor_ doesn’t seem right when really, everyone’s still approaching reconstruction with a general’s mindset. “I know,” he says quietly.

“So.” Sokka leans in close. He puts his left hand on the side of Zuko’s neck, thumb brushing against Zuko’s chin, his long fingers curled behind Zuko’s good ear, blocking out the world. Zuko can feel his breath against his mouth. “Let me stay with you,” Sokka murmurs, eyes flicking between Zuko’s gaze and his mouth. Zuko’s lips part. “C’mon. You need someone. It could be me.”

“I’m not asking you to do that,” Zuko says helplessly, his face warm, his hands migrating trancelike in the direction of Sokka’s waist. They pause on their way for a rest on Sokka’s thighs. Sokka is so— solid. So broad, so strong. Zuko wonders what would happen if he stopped holding himself up, let Sokka take him. “Sokka. Sokka, I wouldn’t—”

“I know.” Sokka’s right hand pulls Zuko’s left to his waist, until they’re sitting there next to each other, in front of the bar, curled in like they’re dancing. “I know, I know. I’m telling you that I want you to. I want you to ask me.”

Zuko feels breathless. He closes his eyes. He leans in, because he has nothing to say, nothing to offer but this: he leans in to kiss Sokka, right there in public, and blacks out.

* * *

Zuko wakes up in what amounts to a stone hole in the ground with a thin slit for air near the ceiling. The air is a little stifled, but not hot; Zuko assumes he’s still in the city near the palace, since he’s fairly certain he hasn’t been out long enough for a trek to the nearest prison. The back of his shirt is soaked with hangover sweat, and his mouth tastes awful.

Zuko’s pretty sure that if he survives this, he’ll find it unbelievably fucking embarrassing.

“You alive?” Zuko pushes himself to something resembling a seated position at the sound of Sokka’s voice. “Hey. Zuko.”

“I’m here,” Zuko rasps, his voice scratchy with dehydration and sleep. His limbs feel strange, fuzzy. “Do you think we were drugged?”

“Definitely. I’m pretty sure I can hold my liquor better than that.” Sokka groans. “I hate this. Spirits, what is this? A coup?”

“This is so bad.” Zuko rubs his eyes. The night comes back to him in slivers, a shot of sake here, Sokka’s hands there. Sokka seems to make up most of the pieces he can remember, and there’s something he’s missing, something big.

“Let’s see if we can get outta here.” Sokka groans, and Zuko turns around to see him pushing at a stone wall. “Fuck. Solid stone.”

“Who could’ve guessed?” Zuko snorts, rudely, because he is remembering that he passed out just as he was about to kiss Sokka, which is a memory that is somehow both humiliating and devastating. Sokka looks back at him with hurt eyes, and Zuko looks away.

“Anyway,” Sokka says pointedly, “it’s too bad _no one else in here has any ideas_. I sure would love to try _anything else_.”

“Sorry,” Zuko mutters. He stands up to look around the room. It really is a solid hole, nothing in sight except for the window, still dark outside. “This must’ve been—”

“Earthbenders,” Sokka confirms. He sits down on a small jutting ledge of rock, and Zuko lies back down. “Man. What’d we ever do to earthbenders?”

“Revenge of the cabbage vendor,” Zuko jokes, because if he thinks about the truth of it, he’ll scream. Kuei has every right to dethrone him, to take his kingdom. Zuko’s not sure he’d even fight.

But, on the flip side, his people deserve more than to become a revenge colony of the Earth Kingdom. They deserve true liberation from the tyranny of his father. Zuko’s not sure he’s the man to give it to them. He’s not sure anyone is.

The two of them sit there in silence, contemplating their fate. Zuko’s about to stand up and try melting a wall with firebending when Sokka speaks.

“Now’s probably a good time to tell you I asked everybody to come visit,” Sokka says.

Zuko pauses, sitting halfway up. “What?”

“You know, you’re just so…” Sokka waves his hand in Zuko’s general direction. “Fire Lord-y. Figured you could use a break.”

“You invited our friends to a coup.” Zuko tries to keep calm, to match Sokka’s wry conversational tone, but he can’t. Zuko is going to get his friends killed because he doesn’t know how to run a country. His chest hurts, his stomach hurts, he’s— “I’m going to throw up.”

“Oh no, Zuko—” Sokka walks over as Zuko curls over, vomiting bile and last night’s takoyaki on the ground. “Hey. It’s okay.”

“Why is everything worse now?” Zuko presses his forehead against the stone wall, feeling unreasonably awful. His adrenaline is spiking in direct opposition to his exhaustion, and he wants to— he wants it to be over, whichever way it’s going to fall, whatever _it_ is.

Sokka’s hand smooths down Zuko’s back. “It isn’t worse. Are you kidding? This time two years ago Ozai was sending out warships to murder a twelve year old. And I wasn’t saying that stuff about inviting people over to make you feel bad, dude. I’m saying we have reinforcements coming.”

“So I’m supposed to let everyone else clean up my messes,” Zuko spits, and then closes his eyes in shame. As if his friends don’t care at all for him; as if they’re a clean-up crew. Quietly, he adds, “I didn’t mean that.”

Sokka pats Zuko’s back once, firmly. “I know.” He stands up to examine the small window, and Zuko pushes himself off the ground to join him.

A floating dust mote in a moonbeam catches Zuko’s eye. It strikes him that he should barely be able to see, let alone see a full beam of light, but he follows the light down to the ground, right to a small, raised mound.

“Sokka,” Zuko says, turning fully towards the mound. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

Sokka laughs. “Pretty sure we already knew that, considering you joined me on a suicide run to Boiling Rock as a teenager. What’s up?”

“This.” Zuko crouches near the dirt, raised in a perfectly circular hill like something under it was surging upward, interrupted somehow. “The moon showed it to me.”

“I— yeah, okay.” Sokka squats next to Zuko, but keeps his eyes on the window. His voice cracks. “Still lookin’ out for me, huh.”

Zuko turns away to give Sokka some semblance of privacy. He wonders if Yue looks down on him with approval. If that’s even something he gets to wonder.

“I saw something strange in the palace gardens once,” Zuko says softly, hesitant to interrupt Sokka’s moment. Still. They have a — whatever this is, a _coup_ — to fight. “Some kind of spirit in a mound like this. It was an earth spirit, a gopher mole that turned into a snake. And then—” He laughs, suddenly. He hadn’t realized it. “And Tui and La, as koi. They were in the pond.”

“Woah.” Sokka sets his hand on Zuko’s shoulder, turning him towards him. “That’s serious spirit world stuff, man.”

“I saw a vision, too. I thought—” Zuko sets his hand on the mound. “I thought the spirits didn’t care much about politics.”

“We met a spirit once that attacked a town because they’d destroyed its home forest,” Sokka says. Zuko’s palm starts to feel warm. Sokka continues, “That was political. I think the spirits can tell when something is—”

Suddenly, a small scorpion-lizard, about half normal size, splits from the earth like a flying dolphin fish from the sea. “Woah—” Zuko grunts, pushed back onto his ass as the scorpion-lizard scurries across the room to a wall.

“What do you think it’s gonna do?”

Before Zuko can answer, the lizard sets its splayed toes against the wall, pushing itself up until it is almost standing. And then, it pushes forward, into the stone, and it’s— Zuko has no words to describe it, other than that it pushes, as though the wall is some sort of— of button, or drawer, a book slotting into its place on a shelf, sinking in easy. The lizard crawls through, leaving behind a stout tunnel.

“Uh.” Zuko rubs his eyes, squinting. “That’s new.”

Sokka walks forward. “Should we… go in?”

“Not like we’ll get out by staying in here,” Zuko mutters, summoning a flame in his palm as he steps into the tunnel. He wonders what the tunnel makes Sokka think of; Zuko thinks of the maze of tunnels under the palace that he trawled to find his father, the strange disconnection from the sun as he confronted Ozai.

“Kinda reminds me of the tunnels in the Fire temple we visited so Aang could talk to Roku,” Sokka says. “Only those had better lighting.”

“My greatest apologies, Sokka,” Zuko says, bringing a flame into his left hand as well. “Better?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Sokka mutters, walking up to Zuko’s side. “You’re doing fine.”

Zuko nods, humbled. They walk forward in silence, hunched under the low ceiling pressing overhead. Time seems to stretch, both endless and nothing; Zuko’s not sure if ten minutes or ten hours have passed. His eyes unfocus. Forward step, onward, no need to think.

“Hey—” Sokka puts his hand on Zuko’s shoulder, pausing him, and Zuko realizes that he’s cold, and that Sokka is warm. “Is that a wall?”

Zuko waits as Sokka moves forward to explore the tunnel ahead of them. He’s right — the tunnel is blocked by some sort of wall. Zuko moves closer and sees that it’s made of dirt. It crumbles where Sokka touches it.

“What do you think?” Sokka asks. “Should we try to push through it?”

“Risky,” Zuko notes. “But it might be our only choice.”

“I think so, too.” Sokka laughs. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty good about this, weirdly enough.”

Zuko grips Sokka’s arm before he can start digging through the wall in front of them. “Wait.”

“Yeah?” Sokka turns around. “What’s wrong?”

It all seems… too easy. “Aren’t you worried? What if this is a trap? The convenient tunnel, the moonlight…”

Sokka blinks at him, and then— he _laughs_. “Zuko, buddy,” he snorts, “all the other stuff was a trap. We were _literally_ trapped in a hole in the ground. This? The earth, the spirit world?” Sokka sets his palm on Zuko’s shoulder, and Zuko shivers despite the warmth of the volcanic tunnel. “They’re on your side. The whole _world_ wants you on that throne, not Ozai or some other wannabe.”

“You really think so?” 

“ _Yes_.” Zuko watches as Sokka’s face twists into an awkward smile, half visible in Zuko’s flickering fire. “You— you have to know. How much I—”

Zuko swallows. Sokka’s hand is so heavy, so hot on him. “Yeah?”

“Respect,” Sokka croaks out, and then clears his throat. He pulls away. “How much I respect you.”

Zuko nods. “Yes,” he says, feeling strangely, stupidly disappointed. “Of course I know. You show me every day.”

He sees Sokka’s hand flex, once, before Sokka turns back to the stone in front of him. “So. Onwards?”

Zuko nods, and puts his hands on the stone, next to Sokka’s. Together, they push.

* * *

“Hey! Fire Lord!” Toph’s sharp voice carries across the general din. Zuko blinks through the smoke, stumbling with Sokka towards the palace. “Over here!”

Zuko marches forward, surveying the scene in front of him. A group of fighters are battling his guards, and just past them, at the foot of the palace steps, Toph is holding back a pair of earthbenders whose form looks suspiciously similar to that of the Dai Li. Aang and Katara are holding back a small tank, something that looks repurposed from the invasion of the caldera so many years ago.

“What is this?” Sokka asks incredulously. “Are these earthbenders?”

“No,” Zuko realizes as they get closer to the fray. “They’re… Fire Nation.” As one of them pulls his hands together above his head, summoning fire, Zuko is shocked cold. These are his _people_.

His throat clenches. He thought things were better. He thought things were going _well_.

“Look out, idiot!” Sokka rushes forward to elbow the man in the collarbone, following it up with a punch to the gut. “Zuko. Pay attention.”

Zuko tries to use his firebending to steal fire away from the other benders, curling it into his body. Someone shoves him away from Sokka— he pushes back, hard. “Sokka—!”

“I’m fine!” Sokka calls back, pushing through the fighters slowly encroaching on him.

Zuko heaves forward. Sweat in his hair, his eyes— someone grasps at his waist, alarmingly intimate— “Hey—”

As he turns around, the fighter drops, Heda’s figure standing in their place. She nods, and Zuko turns back around, fighting through the crowd to get to Sokka. “Sokka!”

“Yeah—” Sokka kicks someone’s knees out, blocks a punch to the throat before stumbling back.

The sun beats down on Zuko as he clears a path. He loses track of the bodies dropping, whether they’re from his fire or his guards’ arrows. Finally — _finally_ — he makes it to Sokka, nudging in at his back to defend him.

“Fu—” Sokka’s body flies backwards, hitting Zuko’s back, and Zuko twirls around.

“Sokka—”

“Go!” Sokka turns, slides a hand past Zuko to block a hit. He stumbles, he’s— Sokka’s _hurt_ —

Zuko catches him, blasts a ring of fire around him as he shuffles forward with Sokka’s weight. “Get outta here,” Sokka mumbles, face disturbingly pale. Zuko presses his free hand to Sokka’s abdomen, climbing upwards, finds blood seeping from his shoulder. “Zuko. You gotta get to the palace—”

“I’m not leaving you here.” Then— fire, on his left, and he—

He flinches, and he screams, and he fires back, shaking with adrenaline. He turns back to Sokka, his head resting on Zuko’s chest. “Sokka. Sokka.”

Suddenly, a wall of stone spears the ground in front of them, separating Sokka and Zuko from the rest of the crowd. “Had to wait for you slowpokes to make it far enough first,” Toph says in explanation, and slides her foot, bringing Zuko and Sokka on an earth platform towards her. Zuko almost trips over a metal box, which he’s pretty sure is currently imprisoning the two earthbending fighters. “Sounded like you needed help.”

“Sokka’s hurt,” Zuko says, dumbly, like it’s the only important thing there is to say. He looks out at the wreckage of the plaza that once welcomed the public in front of the palace.

His guards are holding their own, but they’re outnumbered. Aang and Katara have slowed the advance of the tank, but its wheels continue to roll forward, inching closer every time the ice melts or the earth shifts.

Zuko presses his hand to Sokka’s wound, unable to do anything else. “Can you take care of him?”

“Yeah.” Toph cocks her head to the side. “What are you gonna do?”

Zuko looks down. “Fight.” He doesn’t want it — not anymore, not now that there’s peace, supposedly, but. He clenches his jaw. It’s cowardly to hesitate. He steps forward—

“Wait.” Toph’s hand is firm on his stomach, and he pauses. “Something’s happening.”

Zuko catches a glimpse of Aang out of the corner of his eye. In a moment that stretches out like a ribbon, something taut, tense, Aang’s tattoos turn blue; air swirls around him, enveloping him, and then—

“ _What the fuck?_ ” Zuko blurts out, as clouds suddenly move in to cover the sky, sheets of water falling to slice through the tank, splashing harmlessly over the rest of the palace grounds. Somehow — inexplicably — a great badgermole lumbers out of a hole in the ground, swiping at the fighters looking up in shock.

And, like a rushing wave, coming up from the rim of the crater: people.

“Woah,” Toph says.

The crowd swarms into the city, marching, a distant roar turning into a powerful tsunami. The dark sky lightens above them, bringing the sun back as they move closer to the plaza. As they approach, a small group stumbles out of the decimated tank.

The people — his people, too, Zuko realizes, recognizing Fire Nation robes and firebending styles — easily subdue the fighters grouped at the palace steps, pushing forward, past the wall Toph has erected.

The badgermole rumbles forward to meet the crowd, as Katara stops her bending and Aang falls to the ground. And then — and Zuko realizes what he should have known — the badgermole disappears into the crowd, dissipating, like the wind. Like a spirit.

Zuko whirls around to Sokka. “Are you all right? Katara!”

“I’m fine,” Sokka says, pressing his hand to his shoulder, lying on the ground. “Seriously.”

“Tell Katara to heal him,” Zuko tells Toph, and then — because he knows his duty — he leaves them, to meet the crowd.

For one long moment, Zuko looks at the mass of people in front of him. They’re not still, but they’re not restless, either. A great crowd of people who have come to fight Zuko’s battle for him.

“What is this?” Zuko asks the crowd, because he knows what the rest of it was. It was a coup, and he pushed it back, mostly, with his friends and his guards and, strangely, an earth spirit. But this — these people — this is inexplicable to him.

One of them walks towards him, and Zuko recognizes them. _Jenko?_ “Jenko— what—”

“We knew this was coming,” they say, and Zuko balks. They smile wryly. “Not— not like this. Not all the details. But we knew an attack was coming. This morning, their order went out, and so did ours.”

“So.” Zuko swallows. There is a crowd of hundreds, perhaps a thousand people in front of him. He stands up straight, despite the throbbing in his ribs, from a hit he hadn’t realized he’d gotten. “Why are you here?”

“For you.” Jenko bows, thumb against their palm, and — like the lapping of the tides against a gentle shore — the rest of the crowd follows suit, going quiet.

A breeze blows through the crater, whipping Zuko’s hair, and for once — for the first time, maybe — Zuko feels free.

“The new age,” Aang croaks out. Zuko turns, and sees him blinking up at the sky. “The spirits knew.”

“For the first time,” Jenko says, their head still bowed, the rest of the crowd silent, “we have been represented in our government. For the first time, our people’s lives have been protected, not thrown away for the Fire Lord’s war. For the first time, we have hope for a just and lasting peace.” They stand up, and the rest of the crowd follows. Jenko adds, “All of these things I have named must continue. These are the broadest terms of our allegiance. Do you accept?”

“Yes,” Zuko says without hesitation, stepping forward, hand offered out in the Water Tribe fashion, because he cannot bear the idea of making this deal without touch, without physicality. Jenko grips his forearm as he grips theirs, and he smiles. “I accept.”

Jenko grins, too, and the crowd erupts into cheers. Eventually, Zuko pulls away, watching as Jenko confers with a small group, the people who Zuko expects will eventually become his closest advisers as his council members cycle out.

“Hey,” Sokka says hoarsely from behind him, and Zuko turns around. Katara’s tending to him, Aang sitting down on the ground next to him, looking wiped. Sokka offers him a thumbs up. “You did good.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Zuko says, but for once, it’s not an expression of shame. He sits down next to Sokka, too, a smile tugging at his lips, letting himself forget about the coup, its aftermath, the negotiations he will need to facilitate between Jenko and his current councillors for just a moment. “The people did.”

Sokka reaches a hand out, and Zuko grasps it, cradling it to his chest. “That’s good,” Sokka says, wincing as Katara pulls the shard of a spear out from his shoulder. “Zuko.”

“I’m here.” Zuko gives in to the urge to press his mouth to the back of Sokka’s hand, tangling his fingers between Sokka’s. Katara raises an eyebrow, quirks a smile, but thankfully doesn’t comment. He breathes out.

“Feels good,” Sokka whispers, head leaning back against Toph’s makeshift bed as Katara turns her focus back to her brother, brows knitting together in concentration. “Thanks.”

Zuko nods, holding Sokka’s hand tighter, closer to his heart, as he winces through Katara’s healing. He thumbs a circle against Sokka’s palm, his skin somehow warm and soft, and he thinks, bruises forming across his skin, pain creeping into every part of his body: _I won’t ask for anything else. This is all I need_.

* * *

Zuko takes the long way back to his chambers, where Sokka is resting. He’d practically forced Sokka into taking his bed — a good decision all around, for ease of access to his physicians and one fewer place for the kitchens to deliver, but one that makes it difficult for Zuko to get time alone.

With the backing of the people’s alliances, half of the councillors have been ousted. He’s not sure what to do with them, exactly — a newly-founded justice committee is debating the merits of imprisoning them against having the councillors help in rebuilding the decimated western coast of the Earth Kingdom. Two years on, and Zuko still shudders to think of the burning he saw on his first diplomatic mission, great swaths of forest reduced to snapping twigs. Fishermen with burned hands and black phlegm in their lungs.

He stops by Heda’s office. She said she’d prepare a report on the coup for him.

“It’s long,” Heda warns him when he takes the package of papers from her. “In short — we think the action was jointly funded by some of the southern landlords, a few factory owners up noth, and two Earth Kingdom manufacturers.”

Zuko remains standing, although his knees are weak. “I thought the problem was our political system,” he says, flipping through the introduction. The small subsection on Officer Pizin’s arrest is accompanied by a diagram of money exchanging hands, up to all the northern factory owners, with enough spare capital to bribe the northern militia into brutal suppression of the protests.

Heda shrugs. “Yes and no. It is, in the sense that most of the councillors — who the alliances have removed from their positions — were also landlords, or factory owners, or managed trade with the war manufacturers in the Earth Kingdom.”

“Is there a risk of another coup?” Zuko asks, trying to skim the final section of the report. He feels unbearably stupid, a little kid trying to fix the problems of a state.

“Maybe.” Heda frowns. She says, “There are recommendations. Nothing you need to worry about today, Fire Lord Zuko.”

Zuko nods. Before he turns to leave, he admits, “I like that you use my first name.”

Heda nods. She pauses for a short moment, and then asks, “Do you want to know why I do it?”

Zuko sets down the report on her desk to focus on her. “Yeah. I do.”

Heda nods. She says, “Before that, though, I need to tell you something.” She meets his eyes. “I need to report that we lost ten guards in the coup.”

Zuko’s hands tremble. He nods jerkily. “I’m— sorry to hear that,” he whispers. He knows they aren’t anyone he knows — Heda would have led with it if they were — but he still feels deeply responsible. No one should die for him. “Their sacrifice will be honored by the work of the new government. Can I— do you need any assistance in writing letters of condolence?”

Heda shakes her head. “I’ve already written them, Fire Lord. I just—” She offers Zuko a brief, tired smile. “That reaction. That’s why I call you by your first name.”

“Oh?”

“At first,” Heda admits, frowning, “it was a way to be disrespectful. It was technically correct, but no one called your father by his first name, not unless they were family. I kept it up when you came to power, but then I came to realize that you… you were a real person. You had thoughts, and feelings, and you felt empathy for your people. Your name came to mean that, for me.” She laughs. “It meant that you were human.”

Zuko bites his lip, trying not to cry. He picks up the report. “Thank you, Heda,” he whispers, bowing quickly, before making his escape towards his room.

* * *

Sokka, at least, looks well enough. He smiles at Zuko when he pokes his head in the doorway. “Hey. You coming in, Fire Lord?”

“You know you don’t have to call me that,” Zuko chides softly, coming in to settle down at the edge of Sokka’s bed. “Feeling better?”

Sokka shrugs. “I’ve been thinking,” he says, “about my future in the Fire Nation.”

Zuko looks down at his knees. He hadn’t thought to expect it so soon — and yet, Sokka was injured by Zuko’s people, captured by virtue of his association with Zuko. “I understand,” he says quietly.

“You definitely don’t,” Sokka laughs. Zuko glances up at Sokka, who turns his face up to the ceiling, avoiding Zuko’s gaze. “I need something from you,” he says.

“Anything,” Zuko blurts out, and then winces. Careless. But true, at least.

Sokka shakes his head. “This is what I mean. I need— you need to tell me if you don’t want me here. I need a no.” Zuko opens his mouth, but Sokka beats him to the punch. “I get it, okay? I should just take the hint, but I— Zuko, I’d be happy staying here for the rest of my life, as your friend. I don’t need anything else.”

Zuko nods. “I see,” he says.

“No, you don’t.” Sokka blows out a frustrated breath. “Sometimes I think we’re going somewhere, and then nothing. If you don’t want me here, just tell me. I can take it.”

Yeah. Zuko should say it, put them both out of their misery, but he can’t. He can’t make his mouth say the words, _I don’t want you_. “I always want you here,” he admits, focusing on Sokka’s hands.

“Then— then let me stay,” Sokka says. He pushes himself up to a seated position, waving off Zuko’s help. “I don’t need anything else from you,” he hisses as his stomach clenches, trying to support his weight. Zuko watches, useless. “I can deal with it, okay? You don’t ever have to— Zuko, please look at me.”

Zuko meets Sokka’s eyes. “I don’t want you to sacrifice the rest of your life just to make me feel better,” Zuko says. He can’t imagine a world where Sokka would actually _want_ to stay with him. To stay in the Fire Nation, with councillors looking down on him left right and center. A country that’s put him in recovery mode more than once.

“It’s not a sacrifice,” Sokka replies. “You don’t have to love me for me to want to stay.”

Zuko balks. “Sokka—”

“That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s pathetic, I know. I’m in love with you, and you— you don’t want that from me.” Sokka laughs. “I should move on. I know that, okay? But… don’t tell me I’m imagining the fact that you need _someone_ here. You just stopped a fucking _coup_. You need someone on your side. Let that person be me.” Zuko watches, appalled at himself, as Sokka clenches his fists. “I love being here. I love your country. It’s interesting, it’s exciting, your people are brilliant, at least the ones who aren’t shitty fucking Ozai sympathizers, and— and _you’re_ here. I’m not trying for anything here, I took the fucking hint, I just need you to know how it is with me, so you can— so you know. Just so you know.”

“I took advantage of you,” Zuko grits out, instead of responding to any of that. He doesn’t even know how to start processing what Sokka’s said. _I’m in love with you_. What does that even— who could possibly be in love with Zuko? His hands are shaking. He should’ve said this ages ago. He’s— he’s the worst kind of coward. “The last time we were together,” he says, hoarsely. “When you told me you were leaving, that first time, when you left for the South Pole reconstruction project. I put my hands on you.”

“What?” Sokka frowns. “Zuko, I was there. I think I would’ve remembered if you’d taken advantage.”

“The difference in power between our positions is enormous,” Zuko rushes on to say, all of it spilling out of him. “I’ve been— I hoped, but how could I know that you weren’t just saying yes to please me?”

“Zuko, I _started_ that—”

“It’s irresponsible of me to let anything happen,” Zuko continues. He faces forward, looking past Sokka to the wall like a prisoner facing execution. “I’m sorry you’ve had to negotiate my feelings in this way.”

“What part of _I’m in love with you_ are you not getting, Zuko?” Sokka asks. And then he adds, in a stunned tone suggesting the type of awful realization Zuko tends to evoke in people, “Have you been worrying about this the whole time?”

“I know what I look like,” Zuko says hoarsely. “I know what I _act_ like. You can’t possibly expect me to think that you’re in _love_ with me.”

He hears Sokka inhale sharply, sees him close his eyes like he’s in pain. “Spirits, don’t ever say that again. Just— just tell me what you feel.”

Zuko swallows. “Sokka, I—”

“Do you feel the same way I do?”

Zuko realizes his breathing is speeding up. He tries to exhale with more control. “Yeah,” he says, voice cracking. “I do. Sokka—”

“Please let me kiss you.” Sokka leans in towards him, so close, close enough to touch. “I’ve been— Zuko, it’s been almost _two years_. I’m so in love with you. The only thing I want in my life is to make you happy. Will you let me?”

Zuko nods slowly. Sokka shouldn’t have to beg him for anything. “I want you to,” he says.

“No take backs,” Sokka jokes, and Zuko laughs, the tension suddenly tightening, morphing into something cleaner, crisper, happier.

“No,” Zuko says, laughing, half-crazed with it. “No, I wouldn’t—” and Sokka’s there, hands on Zuko’s face. His palms are so warm. His eyes are so beautiful. He’s the most beautiful man in the world.

Zuko’s eyes slip closed as Sokka leans in, and then finally they’re kissing. Sokka’s lips are soft against Zuko’s, gentle like Zuko’s never been treated in his life. Sokka’s shaking, Zuko realizes distantly, or maybe it’s Zuko. Maybe it’s the both of them.

“I worried about you,” Zuko says into Sokka’s mouth. “You make me so happy, but you make me worry, too.”

“You know it’s the same for me,” Sokka murmurs, pulling Zuko in closer, until he’s got one knee on the bed, half-kneeling. “I can’t believe I didn’t know someone tried to _kill_ you. A year ago. And then, this coup. You know how stressful that is?”

“Let’s not talk about it,” Zuko tries, running his hands all over Sokka’s body, his shoulders, his gorgeous chest, his arms. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you.”

“Better believe it,” Sokka says, chuckling. He presses a kiss to Zuko’s nose. “You’re so cute.”

“That still—” Zuko can feel the bridge of his nose flushing under Sokka’s gaze. “You know I still like that.”

“I love that,” Sokka says, and then leans in to press a quick kiss to Zuko’s chin, the bend of his jaw, just under his ear. “Lie down with me?”

“Yeah,” Zuko breathes, and shrugs his outer robe off onto the floor to nestle in under the blankets with Sokka.

It strikes him all of a sudden, that he can have this. That he _has_ it. Sokka’s love. He laughs, happy and crazed with it. “Sokka. Sokka.”

“ _Yes_ , Zuko,” Sokka says, wriggling around to get comfortable.

Zuko rolls over and settles his arm, gently, on the uninjured part of Sokka’s torso. He inhales, Sokka’s warm, clean scent filling him up with joy. Into Sokka’s skin, he whispers, “I like you a lot.”

Sokka brings his free hand — the one that isn’t trapped under Zuko’s body — up to thread through Zuko’s hair. “You too, buddy,” Sokka murmurs, quiet and intimate. Just for Zuko to hear.

* * *

Ten miles outside of a city called Gojang, a girl named Inanama walks home from her doctor’s appointment by herself. She’s already nine, and besides, it’s only two streets away from her house.

When she gets home, she slurps down her mother’s noodles. Inanama realizes the medicine has been working; all of a sudden, for the first time she can remember, she can eat without stopping for breath. Yesterday she hadn’t choked once during dinner.

She doesn’t have the words to say what she means to say. Instead, she says: “Mama, it’s yummy.”

Nia kisses her forehead. “I’m happy you like it,” she says to her daughter. She scoops more food onto Inanama’s plate. Inanama only notices her mother is crying when she looks up at her. Nia smiles.

“Are you sad, Mama?” Inanama asks. 

“No, my baby,” Nia whispers, mouth pressed against her daughter’s hair. Inanama feels her shaking her head. “I’m so very, very happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done — wow! Thanks for reading!
> 
> I feel like I really sped through posting these (mostly because I just wanted to get it online before final papers — grad school is brutal lol) but I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'd also love to keep writing in this universe, so if you have any scenes you'd like to see with our boys, feel free to toss some ideas in the comments. As always, I'm over on tumblr @agoodsoldier if you wanna say hi :)


End file.
